The Poems: Beach
My Birthday and the Annual Ache of August
I drove to the old neighborhood
on a Tuesday morning,
looking for a place inside
that was left untouched
by time and trying,
vacant of ego,
quiet of the voice of recompense.
I stepped out of the car
where Sachem Street
meets Quincy Bay,
climbed over the seawall
as the musk of low tide
drew me through the rear view,
when awkward was being and
narrow the road to heaven.
Only now
can I see the revelations of
then,
in the blue below the Boston skyline,
in the sand and the cobble,
a curved line of dry seaweed, the
abandoned armor of a horseshoe crab,
the unhinged shell of a razor clam
lying loose of life.
Only now
can I hear the declarations of
then,
in wind on waves toned with
passing cars flowing and blowing
beneath the cries of
ghettoed gulls
and the cruel laughter of
Catholic girls in bathing suits
holding sway over the night
when dizzying echoes of clumsy utterances
harmonized in moonward song only
to fall
to earth
with protestant shame.
I do not always know
that I feel the presence of
only now,
but if I do,
it would be in waking moments
being born to a new day,
with eyes unsure to open,
with a fleshy heart unstirred,
before my human mind remembers
the reluctant grievance I hold against the shoreline
for letting me go
just because I could not stay.
Yesterday was my birthday, which coincided with this poem being in the queue, next up for posting here. It was also precisely 49 years ago that I was driving a blue 1973 Ford Pinto following behind my parents in the station wagon just ahead, from our home in New England to our new home in Kansas. I’ll spare you the commentary on culture shock for a boy just turning 18. I’ll also spare you any regrets. I’ve been able to go back many times to walk that beach, to feel the old feels, and reach new understandings of why I left and where I was headed. Departures, deaths, divorces have come and gone, and now I’ve lived in Colorado for 33 years, and in this house where I’m sitting for twenty. I’m settled and looking forward, mostly, and happy as a man can be who was born in August.



Happy birthday! Mine was the 21st and I know that August ache. It's like a Sunday evening times one hundred.
Straight to my soul, James!