CHAPTER 1
The Truth in an Egg Shell
The turtle's nest marked with four stakes wrapped
with several strips of yellow and orange tape—
much like that used at scenes of violent crime—
and bearing notice of registration and the fact
in Sarasota it is a crime to tamper
with eggs a turtle has deposited, drew me
walking from the street to the water's edge
as if by magnetic force as I considered
the proper place to set my chair. I'm not
a turtle, but I suspect I found this evidence
that turtles, though generally invisible,
thrive off this shore, comforting.
Unfolding my chair and spreading a towel
just feet from the protected site, I felt some
assurance I myself would somehow be
sheltered from the worst of the effects of my own
kind. Lounging here—the rhythm of the surf
licking the beach a few yards before me
soothing as a lullaby might be to a child, as
the Ronettes, Shirelles and Supremes had indeed
been to me, before my adolescent innocence
was stormed by imported sounds called the Beetles,
Rolling Stones and Kinks, promising someone
named Mary Jane was both enlightenment and bliss,
just another of the lies man is prone to tell man since
lying sells, records or whatever—I reasoned I'd be less
prone to being struck by an errant Frisbee, or by
cigarette smoke, a boom box blaring headache
and a roiling stomach, and chatter centering
on chips, Coca-Cola and consumption generally.
Beached at this designated point, I might
lose myself in reverie, imagining two
underwater creatures, a hundred years or more old
each, joining in relationship making all the sense
they required to realize an instinctive duty to promote,
not themselves, but another generation needing
nothing more than they themselves and no more
than they need: clean air and an open sea, one
another and, at a certain time of year, a sandy beach.
So I thought, and I wasn't wrong, suggesting
I myself need the beach, if not quite
as a turtle does, for reasons every bit as natural.
Fishermen
I was writing when Paco greeted
me, a stranger under a blue sky
on the beach at Key West
in early October. From Cuba and about
thirty, he had been fifteen years in Key West
he told me, prompting me to wonder
what this interruption was
all about. It didn't help that he asked
if I were a writer, had had books
people read published, for I knew
he wasn't a publisher and doubted
he was much of a reader. By the time
he squatted, asking me if I had
some time to talk, I was aroused,
ready to shout in English
or Spanish the negative required, if necessary
to display the force of the beast
I was surprised to feel stirring within me,
rising when he asked if I cook for myself
on all fours, ready to pounce—
when he transformed the panther
to a house cat, saying he had
some shrimp he'd like to sell for
he could use a few dollars.
Though I spoke truthfully
when I told him I wouldn't
know what to do with his shrimp
if I bought them, the light that went out
in his eyes at my words,
his "good-bye" spoken
as if suddenly miles away
habitually intrude now, especially
when I contemplate the prospect
of a trip to the mall, seeing
myself one in a crowd insisting
on just the right label and
excited most by what is most
expensive because least likely
to be of any use, and start my stomach
sinking, as if my next meal
swims somewhere
in the ninety miles of Atlantic
separating Cuba from Key West
and I have to catch it
and prepare it to eat it
to live to write and, unlike Paco,
like Jesus at the Sea of Galilee,
I don't know where to begin.
Varieties of Alienation
It's as if they don't see it, yet they come
to this beach on the placid Gulf early on a mild
morning in early spring as if they want to be
here. As they light up their cigarettes and begin
fervently to discuss the deal they just got on
the purchase of an automobile, how they're making
money tracking fluctuating real estate
interest rates and the best crash diet ever, I wonder
whether they do, in fact, see the white sand on which
they've dropped their coolers or the turquoise water
where, should one look, every little fish that swims,
crab that scuttles is visible. The murmur of the surf
caressing the shore can be heard above the patter
of the chatter by which they hold on (as if talking
is a life raft or line) to the life away from this beach
they have escaped only apparently, but with an effort.
I can see they are trying, seem to wish for a connection
natural only in nature and thus, for many, perhaps most
with me on the beach today, impossible to see. If they saw
through cigarette smoke and heard above idle talk
what I know, I don't believe they would hesitate to swim
depths never so deep at this point the ocean's bottom
can't be seen, yet they do, justifying fear or sloth by
referencing television tales of shark attacks, believing
the reality of death is easier if denied, even while
any chance they could die before the will to choose
has died in them is so carefully avoided nature is forgotten.
To me today the surf sounds like a lover resigned
to separation, but its quiet, melodious resignation becomes
an unlikely source of inspiration, reminding me I am one
with this beach if willing to open wide my arms, like a swimmer
or a lover, willing to struggle not to drown before I will.
(Diving In) Out of the Rain
It is only deep within my self I am happy
with myself. Otherwise, I am just like about
everyone I meet, needing someone or some
thing other, not knowing whom, what,
or for what. In the shallows need overwhelms like
a tidal wave the landscape the self, and the marketplace
erected in need drowns out nearly all other voices or
sounds, shouting affirmations of our worst fears
and greatest greed. The self in the street or alone
with the television or a glossy magazine, if audible at all,
is barely more than a whimper. A feeble cry, however,
even a moan, is s sign of life signaling depths
frightening only when they are ignored which,
therefore, should be plumbed. There is more
than dark water at the ocean's bottom, and
even what is terrifying as a risk to life often proves,
upon acquaintance, primarily a mystery acting as
a spur to acquiring knowledge. Understanding,
we can see sharks are much like us and observe,
around and beyond the stealthy ways of predators
seeking sustenance and achieving procreation, a beauty
and fecundity making wonder tangible as a heart
within a self which, before sight, is sensed merely as
a ghostly threat, a force promising a world nothing like
the one discussed in shops and on the radio but which,
seeing, reveals a reality unlike anything we can
purchase or pretend we are. In the reaches of the profound,
sea weeds delicate as spiders' webs bloom as hibiscus
in the eyes of a tropic sun, and tiny fish scaled
as brilliantly as rainbows thrive as if barracuda
can do to them nothing unnatural, lurk in shadows
only as a promise even death precipitates awe.
Solace at High Tide
On the beach, at the ocean's edge,
at the end of my day of rest,
I am not looking forward to the week
of work before me, glad as I am
I am capable of looking forward
and reminding myself, given real
necessity, I have reason to be grateful
for a job. Though it will not demand
all of me, unlike love or my art, only
a miniscule portion of my being,
is actually dismissive, even derisive
of what matters most to my well-being
which it requires me to muzzle and leash
in order to produce without offense, as if
what isn't useful in generating dollars
is of no use, it allows me still a measurable
freedom, for example this day of rest
and certain undisturbed nights during which
I am not left feeling stranded, washed up
on some deserted shore like a piece of flotsam
waiting only to be picked up and tossed into
a landfill reserved for waste since I am not
required generally to swallow integrity or reason
in the interest of efficiency. On a few rare
occasions when a sense of duty has demanded
I do, I have swallowed in the knowledge
I will be released with time enough to lick
my wounds like some sorry cur hiding
in the dark, in the sea oats on some
scrub of beach after prowling city streets
during the day yet different, sadder but
more fortunate than the common cur, for
the injuries I lick cannot be relieved by
the caress of a tongue or even another's
gentle hand because they're internal,
lie within that part of me responsible
somehow, in the end, for all of me, for what
on the job doesn't work yet is cause for my
being and, thus, must be addressed respectfully
if life is finally to merit working at all.
The surge of the tide rising as the sun
descends is a balm, though, reminding me
the hurt I suffer suffering slights demanding
I be less than I am, give short of my best
and all, pains just because we we're born
to be whole in order to be moved by beauty
like the moon to fullness and the ocean to depth,
to accept with joy every sunrise all that breathes
and, as well, as long as I in- and exhale in love,
like the tides, I, too, am capable
of carrying far out to sea the debris of the day
requiring subsuming by the universe.
On the beach, alone in my reflection at
sunset, I'm reminded I am responsible
but for an infinitesimal part of that universe.
Amalgamation
Their beauty and obvious happiness might well provoke
envy, especially in one who's never known the sense
of power those who generate craned necks and
straining eyes like mine may feel, who's never laughed
in unison with another, utterly forgetful of the self and
all others but one. Still, comprehensible as it may be,
such envy would be, as envy always is, unjustified.
Intriguing, nearly incredible as their dance across
and around the beach is in its unrehearsed yet perfect
synchronization—the young man feigning a martial artist
one moment, acting a lover the next, never more than inches
from the young woman moving with a grace uninhibited
by fear in whatever direction she wills—and despite
the lithe and toned matching bodies they display,
these young lovers must face the same elemental facts
anyone who lives long enough, in grace or not, must
and still lose love altogether. The most they can hope for
(and anyone can hope for them) is that they'll see one day
what commands my attention today as their bodies sway
as if a moon and earth to their private solar system, disturbing
my concentration. It's the sun I try to focus on this afternoon
for, though a gauze of clouds obscures it, the sun
is still finally responsible for all that lives
in our common system of revolving spheres. Even
in the haze of an early winter day on a Gulf beach,
I'm reminded of this by the colors of the world
in which the young lovers perform their dance, unaware
of any eyes but those into which each peers:
the palest blue of a sky brushed with flimsy
shrouds of cloud, the crystal-like, sugar-soft white sand
of the beach, the faint turquoise of the calm sea laced
with the foamy froth of a breaking surf, though distinct,
seem to form almost one sphere as if on the verge of blending
to form a seamless world the greatest painter in pastels
might spend a life attempting in futility to represent.
The sun alone's the source of all success, though
the dream of lovers and the artist's vision deceive us
by the power of their beauty, cause us to forget
the base elements of which all we know of life's composed,
how the tide deposits on the beach at dusk tales of life speaking loudly
of the inevitable end to the vaulting just off shore of a pod
of burnished dolphins while lovers dance oblivious in the sand.
Beach Effect
I've got no problems today, nor any
particularly special cause for dancing
gleefully. I might as well be
one of the fleece-like white
clouds adrift in the azure sky
forming an airy dome about me
this afternoon, or the emerald Gulf itself
stretching out before me, translating
the glowing sun into a dance of thousands
of tiny, twinkling lights. It would seem
as if the sky cannot contain its well-being,
the sea its joy. However, as any creature
of reason like me knows, aware inanimate
objects don't feel, despite my senses'
testimony to the contrary, this is impossible.
Thus it is reason makes a mockery
of sight and hearing, touch and smell, even
of the taste of the apricot I bit into
after swimming, it's juice filling my mouth
with a relish chewing its soft, golden flesh
actually consummated. But I forget myself!
This is only a metaphor, a description, though
the seagull—which suddenly came running
toward me as I masticated the luscious fruit,
abandoning its routine stroll at the sea's edge,
cranking its webbed feet with an urgency
I found amusing only its obtaining proximity
to my lounge chair and me abated, to pause,
to look askance, to eye me surreptitiously, back step
at my glance, advance two steps closer
when I averted my eyes, knew exactly why
the sun was dancing on the Gulf
this morning to an audience of happy clouds.
