I Imagine, for dVerse Poets Open Link Night

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I Imagine

I imagine one more holiday.
My mother sits at a large picture window
looking out over a broad beach,
watching dogs fetching sticks.
Then, because she cannot help it,
she takes her shoes off and walks out the door.

I imagine her  sighting the offshore rock
where puffins nest.
I imagine footprints–hers and mine
and the paw prints of the dog–
someone else’s–
who joins us for the price of a stick thrown
over and over into the waves.

My mother could count her trips to the beach
on one hand,
and most of those times have been with me.
Once, in Wales, we sat on the long sea wall
under Dylan Thomas’s boathouse.
A cat walked the wall out to us,
precise and careful
to get as few grains of sand as possible
between its paw pads.
Preening and arching under my mother’s smooth hand,
it’s black hairs caught in her diamond rings.

The other time we went to the beach
was in Australia.
We stayed out all afternoon,
throwing and throwing a stick.
A big black dog running  first after,
then in front of it,
My dad sleeping in the car parked at the roadside,
my mother and I playing together
as we  had never played before.

My mother and the ocean
have always been so far divided
with me as  the guide rope in between.
I imagine reeling them both in toward each other
and one more trip.
My mother, me, a dog or cat.
Wind to bundle up for and to walk against.
Wind to turn our ears away from.
Sand to pour out of our pockets
to form a small a volcano
with a crab’s claw at the top.

So that years from now,
when I empty one pocket, I  will find sails
from by-the-wind-sailors
and shark egg casings,
fragile black kelp berries
and polished stones.
The dreams of my mother.  The bones of me.

From the other pocket, empty,
I will pull all the reunions I never fought hard enough for–
regrets over trips to the sea we never made.
And I’ll imagine taking me to oceans.
Walks.  Treasures hidden in and hiding sand.
Someone walking with me–
someone else’s child, perhaps,
and a dog chasing sticks.

I have a wonderful photo of my mother with a cat on Dylan Thomas’s Sea Wall,
taken during our trip around Great Britain in 1985, but I cannot find it, so here
is the only one I have of her and me alone together ,taken
by my sister Betty Jo, thirty-some years before .

For dVerse Poets Open Link Night

25 thoughts on “I Imagine, for dVerse Poets Open Link Night”

    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      Sentimental memories. I wrote it the year I quit my job,sold my house I’d spent 4 years designing and building, and went to Oregon for a writer’s Workshop at Cannon Beach, CA. I was imagining my mother being there with me. Then I went to California to write the great American. novel I never finished…Ha. But I’ve written 9 books since…the 7th and 8 published last year and the 9th this year I hope. My mother was the first to inspire me to write so she was there in spirit but although still alive, not in person.

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  4. jcosmo's avatarjcosmo

    Memories nourish as long as regrets are kept in check. Just remember that what was done in the past was always thought to be the best thing to do at the time. At the time.

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        1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

          No sandy beaches on Bacalar Lagoon in Quintana Roo, where I will be for the month of December, but beautiful water and scenery and seclusion that I hope will help me get back to finishing my book about Ethiopian adventures 50 years ago. Yikes.

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      My mother and I had a wonderful driving trip all through Great Britain together…I treasure the memory of that time together. Wish I could find the photo I mention of her and the cat on the sea wall beneath Dylan Thomas’s house. And wish she could have been on Cannon Beach with me to see the scene I imagined her in.

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  10. anntonyjandc's avataranntonyjandc

    Judy. The poem of your mom at the sea w you and any volunteer animal, is just perfect. I love you, your words. Your mother, your mother’s words that helped shape you. You are such a treasure. Loving you, Ann

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