by Allison Dolan

Created on: July 26, 2007

Beach Poems of My Youth -

Dedicated to my mom, who taught me love of books and the sea.

In the shadowed mist that is the place
between dreams and reality,
my mind tends to wander more often than not.
It seeks the grainy pictures of a magical time
before grief...disappointment...heartache...responsibility. ..
another lifetime ago...

Take a moment and follow me
into the richness of childhood memories.

I hope you enjoy your stay...

THE OLD CABIN DECK

Under the rickety grayed slats of an old deck,
beside a beloved beach house labeled with a wooden letter
for an owner long forgotten,
a golden-skinned child sits in warm comforting sand,
peering out between timbers that have seen better days.

She sees the metallic surface
of the ocean sand near the breakers,
and knows intimately the feeling
of wet sand squished between bare toes.

Closer to the cabin the sun is beating a ferocious path...
heating the grains to a burning degree for those who venture out
in the bare feet of summer.

Yet in the coolness of her hiding place,
she is surrounded by buckets and shovels,
sand fleas that hop and burrow, hermit crab houses,
bouquets of mussel shells bound together with sinewy sea thread,
pieces of milky glass tumbled by the sea
until they are no longer threatening.

As she peers between the old deck slats above her head,
she has glimpses of her mother,
always in white shorts, forever with book in hand,
sunbathing beneath the sun's harshness.

This is her summer world of childhood imagination.

THE BEACH CABIN

Small, dilapidated, creaky...but loved?
A palace was never more loved!

Pulling the car filled with groceries, kids,
and all the accouterments needed for a two-week vacation,
off the beach road and into the minuscule parking area...
running to see if anything has changed since the year before...
wanting so much for it all to be exactly the same!

Opening the door to a tiny sandy-floored kitchen
that will soon be overflowing with
apples, bananas, tuna-fish sandwiches
and double-stick popsicles.

Step-down bedrooms filled with bunks, trundles
and soft billowy mattresses ...one room flowing into the next...
how we hurry to choose our private summer domain!
Bunks make wonderful hidden tent worlds...

The living room's overstuffed, truly broken-in furniture
made to snuggle down with a favorite book...
a memory of learning to color within the lines
at the old tiled coffee table...
walking always on sandy wooden floors, an old broom a constant fixture
and the subject of the only command summer brings:
"Please sweep the floor!"

Middle-of-the-night

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