no subject
Jan. 25th, 2006 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lotessea glass, brightly
Four days before Christmas we go down
to the lake to look for
beach glass. We do not touch. You
walk down to one end of the beach
while I, head down, wander to the other,
looking for gleams among the dark
rounded stones. I brush the damp sand
from brown and green and white
with a rare flash now and again
of blue or the palest lilac,
sometimes stamped with the brewer’s
name, sometimes still bearing
traces of the shape
of a bottle.
I think of possible
late night-revels, lights and fires
and music and perhaps
prosy aftermath when the teenagers
are drowning deep, clinging to rage
like a life raft; of broken glass
and promises
and sand-muffled threats gone
unreported, of cuts and bruises
and a hangover from hell.
Turning a tactile curve over
in my fingers, I want to think
deep and profound thoughts
about the slow grind of nature
that transforms human ugliness
into lovely bright things
that cannot cut, about
pollution and the cleansing force
of sand—I read about a water filter
that they sell in the Middle East
made of sand, just sand, and
it can clean anything.
The water is quiet now,
pale green and translucent.
In beach season it’s a saturation
of blue, color concentrated
like grape juice. I dip a green
triangle in, and my fingers go white.
Shaking out a crick in my neck, I
cross the sand to you, not feeling it
through the soles of my shoes, and
take your hand. When we get home
we lay out our spoils on the
kitchen table, marveling over our finds
as they catch the light on
horridly patterned paper towels
that your mother must have bought.
People around fandom have been talking about the writing high. Me, I just have poetry high--mainly for reading. Writing is what I do when I'm on it. Doubting , angsting, and otherwise beating myself up is what I do in the low that inevitably follows.
Sick as anything right now. Hope it goes away. Tired.
Four days before Christmas we go down
to the lake to look for
beach glass. We do not touch. You
walk down to one end of the beach
while I, head down, wander to the other,
looking for gleams among the dark
rounded stones. I brush the damp sand
from brown and green and white
with a rare flash now and again
of blue or the palest lilac,
sometimes stamped with the brewer’s
name, sometimes still bearing
traces of the shape
of a bottle.
I think of possible
late night-revels, lights and fires
and music and perhaps
prosy aftermath when the teenagers
are drowning deep, clinging to rage
like a life raft; of broken glass
and promises
and sand-muffled threats gone
unreported, of cuts and bruises
and a hangover from hell.
Turning a tactile curve over
in my fingers, I want to think
deep and profound thoughts
about the slow grind of nature
that transforms human ugliness
into lovely bright things
that cannot cut, about
pollution and the cleansing force
of sand—I read about a water filter
that they sell in the Middle East
made of sand, just sand, and
it can clean anything.
The water is quiet now,
pale green and translucent.
In beach season it’s a saturation
of blue, color concentrated
like grape juice. I dip a green
triangle in, and my fingers go white.
Shaking out a crick in my neck, I
cross the sand to you, not feeling it
through the soles of my shoes, and
take your hand. When we get home
we lay out our spoils on the
kitchen table, marveling over our finds
as they catch the light on
horridly patterned paper towels
that your mother must have bought.
People around fandom have been talking about the writing high. Me, I just have poetry high--mainly for reading. Writing is what I do when I'm on it. Doubting , angsting, and otherwise beating myself up is what I do in the low that inevitably follows.
Sick as anything right now. Hope it goes away. Tired.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 02:02 am (UTC)blessings on your head love ~~shoves bag of fairy dust through internet to you~~
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 08:34 pm (UTC)of broken glass and promises is one really really wonderful line.
If you don't mind I think I'll friend you - you write interesting things and lovely poetry and I remember that you wrote sensible feminist things, which is so rare in this Internet place... It is a thing to be treasured! :D
Much love
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:21 pm (UTC)I'm a Lake Michigan girl, and a sailor's daughter. My mum is obsessed with things found on beaches. She just finished covering the foundation of our house wth a mosaic of beach stones--which we had to carry all the way home!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:47 pm (UTC)Lake Michigan is pretty huge, isn't it? Myself, I've always lived just by the ocean, on the west coast of Sweden. (I can see the beach and the ocean through my window.)
I think it's very thought-provoking, the knowledge that the things you find can be from practically anywhere. And that if you sail out towards the west you could just keep going, and going...
*friends*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 06:56 pm (UTC)Water is just so cool!
no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 04:36 pm (UTC)