The ocean stretches, gracious and insistent,
Toward the umbrellas that veil you, the sodas, the paperbacks.
Sunk in your lounge chair,
You drift into an undertow that questions whether
Your car can hold you after the bombardment of solstice light, whether
The dog you left at home has gone numb from the heat, whether
The traffic will allow you back to reshoulder your citizen responsibilities.
Finely hewn men, slicker than warming popsicles, toss toys and laughs across the sand.
Their women aren’t cheering them—
They recline listless, doped by the broiling spectrum of the sun.
It feels late, even though the pummeling sun shows no sign of giving way to night.
The children have stopped digging, flatting entrepreneurs,
Bored because they have found no spiky creatures.
Bedrock lies farther down than anyone could imagine.
No Taj Mahals of the imagination sprang from the silicon substrate,
So they have thrown away their shovels.
You are trying to harken to divinations from the ocean,
Its depthless grasp of the future,
What its pounding waves only whisper.
The black sea nettles of your imagination lurk among the badminton nets, hot dog stands, surfboard rentals,
Flailing you for your choices.
Even though excursioners stroll cheerily among the dunes,
Hawkers celebrate the hundredth cone sold,
And toddlers marvel over the ebullience of the battering tide
That declares the oncoming end of one last perfect day.
Andy Oram
February 9, 2019