Tag Archives: beach scenes

Beach Rendezvous

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Beach Rendezvous

Your andante whistle matches your advance—measured and slow, as though you know where you are going, but are in no hurry to get there. You’ve grown weird and amphibious—spending equal time in water and on land, a surfboard your new mount, your cowboy hat metamorphosed into a billed cap worn backwards.

You have achieved some notoriety due to that prowess in water that you never found on dry land. You, who crashed cars into traffic cones and bicycles into fences, weave effortlessly from wave to wave, then ride their crests. You nosh on kale and granola, leaving McDonald’s in the past. Who would ever guess that this cowboy farmer would start surfing from scratch at the age of thirty, thereby achieving a fame he’d never earned in the rodeo?

You scratch your forehead, freeing a long blond lock from its imprisonment, pull off your cap and take a playful swap at my shoulder as we draw close enough to share a hug, a kiss.  Classmates our whole lives from elementary school through college, we have somehow slipped into different generations—you the proverbial beach boy surfer, me the middle-aged mommy herding kids away from sand crabs and beached stingrays, you gliding between them on water, already a fixture in this cool beach town–your whole life composed of what for me is an occasional weekend visit lugging picnic basket, beach towels, blanket, umbrella and three children aged four to ten.

“Daddy!” the kids scream, running toward us streaming seawater from their heels. One by one, you grab them under their arms, spinning them in wild circles, then, with the smallest one on your shoulders and grasping the hands of the others on either side, you make off for the water to reacquaint them with their aquatic side. The picture I took that day shows four kids playing in the water. I had given birth to three of them. You gave birth to the fourth.

Prompt words today are andante,amphibious, scratch, achieving, nosh and weird.

The Changing Seasons: Feb. at the Beach, February 2019

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February in La Manzanilla, Mexico:

click on photos to enlarge.

 

Here’s the link for this prompt: https://zimmerbitch.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/the-changing-seasons-february-2019/

We Gather to Write

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We Gather to Write

Waves crashing in below us and jovial repartee
from the ones below us in the small café.
The waiter interrupts us. We order coffee, tea,
or jugo de naranja, but, dedicated, we
return to our writing. It’s what we’ve gathered for,
here where it is quiet, up on the second floor.
Leather covered tables, and equipales, too­­––
tablecloths of orange, yellow, purple, green and blue
as though they had instructions to make use of every hue.
These vivid pigments  seep into all we write and do.
Children leap through tide breaks, walkers gather shells.
Swimmers move hand over hand, out beyond the swells.
But we above just write of it, revealing how we love it
as though we were a part of it instead of here above it.

Beach Rainbows

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It doesn’t often rain at the beach, so on this day, I availed myself of the opportunity to get these shots.  If they seem excessive, I probably shouldn’t admit I took 83!!! Click on any photo to enlarge all.

For Cee’s Rain or Rainbows prompt.

Circling Closer: The Magnificent Frigate Bird

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When the pelicans stayed away for the past few weeks, the frigate birds were out in full force. Usually, it seems to me that these birds soar high above, swooping down only to steal other birds’ prizes, but two days ago, when the pelicans and fish came back as well, they appeared by the dozens, swooping down on the beach to claim bait left on the beach after the fishermen cleared their nets. It was an amazing display. Here are some of the hundreds of  photos that I took of them that capture their numbers and antics to a small degree. Please click on the first photo and then the right arrows to proceed through the enlarged photos and to read the captions that tell the story of their visit to civilization:

Circling Closer:

It was hard to capture the pure numbers of the frigate birds assembling.
They came in long curls and swirls and lines in the air far above.
Soaring
Circling
Swooping.
Solo acts,
Duets,
and beautiful wind-choreographed displays.
Then they flew lower,
Swooped up again
and came closer to the bait
You can see the fish dangling from the beak of this brave bird who nearly brushed me with his wings as he swooped in for his desayuno.

 

The Magnificent Frigate Bird

They polonaise up higher,
far above the rest.
Not once dipping to the land.
Do they ever nest?

I never see them fishing,
foraging or chewing.
As though their wings are made for art
but are not made for doing.

A gentle crease within their wings
looks folded and unfolded,
but keeps its shape no matter what,
as though it has been molded.

This rhyme is not so fragile
nor so graceful as these birds.
I guess such elegance as theirs
cannot be caught in words.

 

(I wrote this poem a few years ago and published it in a series of poems about La Manzanilla. It seemed appropriate to publish it again with these photos.)

Behinds

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The challenge was to take photos of the backs of things. Some of these are way too small in this collage.  Click on the first photo to enlarge them all and see captions.

Behind the Ladder
Behind the Ear.
Behind the Frizbee
Behind the Camera
Behind the Bride
Behind the Family behind the Surf.
Behind the Girls
Behind the Kayak
Behind the Camera Behind the Boys

hy.com/2017/03/21/cees-fun-foto-challenge-view-from-the-back-bottom-or-underneath/