POETRY -
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Baker Beach - San Francisco - B. Applegate
Sea-worn
by Barbara Applegate
Sea-worn, yes.
Tossed and turned, carried by the tide, whisked up, dragged down. Washed over by waves. Bumped into by floating flotsam. Crashed into rocky cliffs, bruised and gouged. Carved away. Floating, spinning, turning over, mashed against buried rocks. Carried along by the tide, no sense of direction, moving as the sea moves. Awash, drifting, and finally, finally, carried by the force of the waves, you end up on Baker Beach. You are so beautiful, you are so stunning in your lifeless presence on the beach. Scarred from your battles with rocky cliffs and floating jetsam. Gouged, ripped, so still, so dead. We stare, we circle, we gently touch. Soon your remaining skin will flay. Birds and perhaps one or two land animals will come in the nights and rip your flesh away. Your skeleton will be bared. And then it too will begin to disappear, since whale bones on coffee tables are good conversation pieces. Soon you will almost have disappeared. All that will be left of you is photographs. And our sorrow. And our guilt. |
Other pieces in this Issue:
Nonfiction Brace Cove, Eastern Point, Gloucester, MA, 2013Brace Cove, Gloucester, MA, 2013 El Machismo Maybe a Motorcycle? Photo Essays Twist and Shout Inside OLLI Book Review - The Emancipation of Emily Rosenbloom, by Elinor Gale Barbara Applegate received a BA at UC Berkeley, with a major in Spanish, and an MS in Education at CSU, East Bay. As an administrator of Early Childhood Education, she developed a program to teach parents in non-English speaking families the value of helping their children retain the home language while learning English. She is the mother of 3 daughters, a traveler and a contemplative. She loves taking writing classes - not only because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.
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