by Kelly Steier

Created on: August 09, 2010

The Shore

Coney Island was but a memory that tugged at my heart,

of a time when he held my hand and showed me the horizon

that gently dotted the sky with a sense of hope that has faded with age

when the blue Atlantic touched the edges of the shore.

He was my blue-eyed hero with a gentleness

that cannot be equaled by anyone

who will ever again come through my life.

Arm and arm we walked,

an aged man ravaged by the cancer within

who knew his time was short and he needed to explain

with mere illusions of a different time when youth was apparent

and each new day blossomed with joy and exuberance.

Arm and arm we headed to the shore

and saw where the sky and ocean met

and he slowly raised his arm above

and told me that is where he would always be

and in times of trial and tribulations,

I could find him there waiting with a soft smile

to hear his child's words.

The shore will never again be the same,

as Poppa was lifted to heaven

and I walk the same sandy beach alone

and search for that special, extraordinary place

where an old man accepted his fate

and tried to sooth the worried soul of his daughter.

And in a glimmer and without fanfare,

a light came above the shore and there in flash

was something I searched for ever since

and my ragged spirit was uplifted for perhaps a mere moment

and I knew deep in a place that belies all logic

that Poppa winked and we were arm and arm again

on all those wonderful sunny days when the shore

fulfilled an emptiness...in an instant...and forever.  

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