Evening Shores

Retreating tides leave a spacious shore. Twilight filters create evening shade. Somber blues tint my views.

Every part of the setting is unassumingly present. Pressing into my consciousness. Absorbing all my attention.

I can see the quiet textures spread out. Settle in.

We path from one topple rock to another in a dizzying, undiscerning pathway. Cool stones make whispery scuffs under our rubber soles.  Their numbers are immensely visible, dotting and circling and lining the edge of the dry sand and flowing into the water. They are impossibly round, like they’ve each been roughed up by a gem tumbler.

Clouds peel their impressions off still pools that are lightly ruffled by wind. Their pink and orange light lines their scratchy, gauzy curves.

Rushing air blends with flows of crushed styrofoaming water. Pulling up its blanket on the reef. Crust shelves sit sturdy over soft ocean. Their alligator teeth tear the horizon’s meet.

We walk past the nomads of dusk:

A spear diver runs by as if on errand, droplets of water clinging to his suit and then falling behind.

A girl playing ukulele stops nervously before we can hear her tune, but smoke from her cigarette makes it into my next deep breath.

A seal, belly sleeping. Its one eye open as we slink by is as judgmental and passing off as Alice in Wonderland’s hookah-wielding, blue Caterpillar. “Who… Are… You?” with a downward and sideglanced disregard.

Sunlight left its shine behind at glamorous noon: squeals and splashes, squints and skin. Its allure fades quickly for me-- I’ll never know how to forget harsh light and desperate charm.

After any longings I have for carefree days, those sober evening shores keep intimacies.