“What is it that you feel you have the need to have 13 ways of looking at?” That was the question posed by Poetry Unbound’s Padraig O’Tuama in a recent post. A question that got me thinking this morning…and also had me rereading Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. My mind went to the beach–a place I spend lots of time for lots of different reasons.

Thirteen Ways of Knowing the Beach

I

I match my breath with the ins and outs of the waves. Salty water molecules swirl around me, seasoning my skin. I fall into perfect sinus rhythm.

II

Seagulls shout. Bossy voices command attention as they probe the shore for handouts and scout out their next heist. Don’t turn your back on the sea or the seagull.

III

Curled toes, deep in the wet and squishy sand. Ankle deep, knee deep, splash! Cool or downright cold. Goosebumps form and squeals of childhood echo. A time machine.

IV

Sun’s out, skin’s out. Memories of baby oil and sunburn mix with realities of skin damage, SPF, and UV index. Trickster sun makes its mark even when hiding behind the clouds.

V

Wind whips and whirls sending sand in sinuous swirls. Waves in white caps wash, breaking barriers, reclaiming all within reach.

VI

Cliffs crumble uncovering geologic stories in layer upon layer, shells on mountain tops where lands rose and sea retreated. History in sediment, conglomerate, sandstone until time, pressure, and heat works its metamorphic magic. Change is constant.

VII

Ospreys hunt, eagle of the sea. Fishing claws grabbing dinner from the deep, no poles or lines. Transported by talons for treetop dining. A creature of sea and sky.

VIII

Squadrons of pelicans in perfect Vs oversee hoards of beachgoers. Gliding on gusts, flapping in formation, surfing the swells, their bellies nearly touching the waves when they rise. Pause and dive. Pouch first approach to prey retrieval. Dramatic drops for seaside lunch.

IX

Artists with rakes trace circles, designs larger than life with perfect symmetry, perfect Pi. Fleeting beauty etched in the sand, hangs in the gallery of your mind’s eye.

X

Tide pools hold secret worlds that live in the in-between. Sometimes completely covered, other times exposed. Life teems under the kelp, sea grass, algae. Sea stars creep on tube-feet, nudibranchs with psychedelic seventies colors strike a pose, pudgy squirting sea cucumbers move only at the sea’s whim. Hermit crabs seek new homes, dwellings abandoned by their former residents.

XI

Snowy egrets with their bright yellow socks stomp the pools at low tide. Lunch counter is open. Neck with an S-curve, stretched out or curled in, dancers in fluid motion.

XII

Beach combing, treasure hunting, shore sweeping. Colored glass roughed and smoothed by the sea, bits and pieces of green, white, amber, sometimes even blue. Sea diamonds. Picking up plastics, multiplying by mitosis, never ending source of damage, destruction. Pollution of our precious life source.

XIII

My playground, location of endless possibility. I walk on water, I walk on clouds. My ears fill with the soothing sounds of whispering waves. I can taste the salt on my lips and feel the release as stress runs down my shoulders and swims out to sea. My heart matches the rhythm of my breath, the rhythm of the sea.