River Brown

This morning I wonder,

Asilomar Beach, will you remember me?  Will your waves welcome me back

When so many birds, kids, dogs and others have been enfolded in your shore line?

I was the woman who sat

With paints all morning

Wanting to capture that rarefied blue shining though sunlit breakers

(I think there’s a name for this sea phenomenon)

Ten years ago my brush adored your cascades, white sand and crumbly rocks.

Do you recall I was fit and yogic?

(I know, you’ve seen so many since)

I watched you froth the white beach graced with clumps of bending grass

I touched pebbles churned by your tide

And I loved you.

Do you recall I took a calligraphy brush

And wrote verses in the back of my water color block?

Trying to put your excellent blue into words

As the sparkle in my lover’s eyes —

My heart frankly broken.

I came back to see you today with only a faint sand-colored scar

and I found us

Essentially the same.

You do not pull me close

I gaze at your grey white from the board walk above but I remember

How in the aching sun I watched a lone, wild surfer

Dare immense waves, like love.

But today only a few black wetsuits dabble on your shore.

I feel the gentle gray greens

Hear the fizzling laugh under your breath.

You do remember.

Your waves are not crystalline blue green prisms today

Your slow swells in strong Prussian tones

Relax, not break.

Later this solitude will shift to another color key.