Category: Beach

Some of these beach haiku were written by random trips to beach.

Most of these are part of a series based on afternoons spent at the beach on Hilton Head Island with my pad out ( a real paper note pad), hoping for words with my iPhone camera handy to add illustration to my thoughts.
I wanted to see if I would be ‘inspired’ by what I saw, by what I heard, by what I smelled, by what I tasted, what I felt emotionally and what I felt tactilely.

Some turned out okay.

Some were too forced.

Some were just bad.

Some did involve some or all of those feelings.

As far as it goes, I guess I was inspired by by what I saw, by what I heard, by what I smelled, by what I tasted, what I felt emotionally and what I felt tactilely.

Please aware that most of these haiku were NOT WRITTEN on the date in the title – for an explanation of this please see The Series link in the navigation table.

12.18.2025 – hello, sun in my face

hello, sun in my face
watch, now, how I start day in
happiness, kindness

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety—

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

WHY I WAKE EARLY in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver (Penguin Press: New York, 2017).

This was the moments before the sun came up out of the Atlantic Ocean today, December 18, 2025. One of the shortest days of the year.

I go from fighting with the morning traffics where everyone who has to be to work on 7 am, tries to makes over the bridge and through the woods of Hilton Head Island even though there are only two roads.

The fun part is that for about a half mile before it splits, the road is 5 lanes wide and closes down to two lanes either side of the split.

There are all of us who work on the island and then there are those poor visitors who think they had driven hours to leave the woes of traffic behind.

I do feel sorry for them as I yell at them to get out of my way.

Then off to the left on the little used Cross Island Parkway and all at once I am on the Cross Island Bridge with the only view available on the island because any island in the low country … is FLAT and covered with trees.

And off to my left is the Atlantic Ocean and 1,000s of miles of nothing and the sky and the rising sun.

Best preacher that ever was,

Dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light—

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day, in happiness, in kindness.

Quite a transformation for the scant miles and few minutes of just a little bit ago.

12.12.2025 – If lucky we may

If lucky we may
witness a spectacle vast
elemental things

The shore means many things to many people. Of its varied moods the one usually considered typical is not so at all. The true spirit of the sea does not reside in the gentle surf that laps a sun-drenched bathing beach on a summer day. Instead, it is on a lonely shore at dawn or twilight, or in storm or midnight darkness that we sense a mysterious something we recognize as the reality of the sea. For the ocean has nothing to do with humanity. It is supremely unaware of man, and when we carry too many of the trappings of human existence with us to the threshold of the sea world our ears are dulled and we do not hear the accents of sublimity in which it speaks.

Sometimes the shore speaks of the earth and its own creation; sometimes it speaks of life. If we are lucky in choosing our time and place., we may witness a spectacle that echoes vast and elemental things. On a summer night when the moon is full., the sea and the swelling tide and creatures of the ancient shore conspire to work primeval magic on many of the beaches from Maine to Florida. On such a night the horseshoe crabs move in., just as they did under a Paleozoic moon — just as they have been doing through all the hundreds of millions of years since then — coming out of the sea to dig their nests in the wet sand and deposit their spawn.

From the article, Our Ever Changing Shore by Rachel Carson, in Holiday Magazine, July 1958 Volume 24 No. 1 as reprinted in Lost woods : the discovered writing of Rachel Carson, Edited by Linda J. Lear (Thorndike Press, Thorndike, Maine, 1999).

12.11.2025 – truly light is sweet

truly light is sweet
pleasant thing it is for eyes
to behold the sun

Based on the Bible Verse, “Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” Ecclesiastes 11:7 (KJV).

Regular readers know that I enjoy bragging that I work so close to the Atlantic Ocean that I am able to take a walk along the beach on my lunch hour.

It’s getting colder and the beach in winter isn’t as much fun as the beach in summer for many reasons but the draw is still there.

It is A BEACH.

The place where the land meets the ocean.

Still, I get asked, even by people I work with in this opportunely placed office, why?

Why do I walk the beach?

I can walk along and look out towards nothing and there are days where nothing is just what you want to, what you need to see.

In the book, The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk write of young officer Willie Keith that:

The sea was the one thing in Willie’s life that remained larger than Queeg.

The captain had swelled in his consciousness to an all-pervading presence, a giant of malice and evil; but when Willie filled his mind with the sight of the sea and the sky, he could, at least for a while, reduce Queeg to a sickly well-meaning man struggling with a job beyond his powers.

The hot little fevers of the Caine, the deadlines, the investigations, the queer ordinances, the dreaded tantrums, all these could dwindle and cool to comic pictures, contrasted with the sea — momentarily.

It was impossible for Willie to carry the vision back below decks.

One rake on his nerves, a wardroom buzzer, a penciled note, and he was sucked into the fever world again.

But the relief, while it lasted, was delicious and strengthening.

Willie lingered on the gloomy splashing forecastle for half an hour, gulping great breaths of the damp wind, and then went below.

All things dwindle and cool to comic pictures, contrasted with the sea — momentarily.

It is impossible, most of the time, but an iPhone photo can help, to carry the vision back.

But the relief, while it lasts is delicious and strengthening.

Boy HOWDY but I am privileged.

I get to walk along the beach at lunch time.

Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.

12.5.2025 – does the grain of sand

does the grain of sand
know it is a grain of sand
in any order

Does the grain of sand
know it is a grain of sand?
Will secrets fly out of me
when I break open?
Are the stars standing
in any order?
Is supplication
useful?
Exactly.

Riprap #8 as published in The Leaf and Cloud by Mary Oliver (Da Capo: New York, 2000)

In the fly leaf to the copy of The Leaf and Cloud that I have is written:

AN ASTONISHING book-length poem in seven parts from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award With piercing clarity and craftsmanship, Mary Oliver has fashioned this unforgettable poem of questioning and discovery, about what is observable and what is not, about what passes and what persists.

Questioning and discovery.

About what is observable and what is not.

About what passes and what persists.

My regular readers know how I love to brag that when I am in the office, I get to spend my lunch hour walking the beach on the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina.

I take a sandy path through a salt marsh and then beach grass to the waters edge.

Its the same every day.

It is different every day.

It passes.

It persists.

It is observable.

It is unseen.

Does the grain of sand know it is a grain of sand?

Are the stars standing in any order?

Is supplication useful?

Observable or unseen?

There is a story told that back in World War 2, at one of the summit meetings of President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshall Josef Staling, Mr. Churchill mention that the point of view of the Pope should be considered on some point.

Mr. Stalin famously rebuked Mr. Churchill, saying something like, “The Pope, how many divisions does he have?”

Most historical accounts stop there.

But some do include Mr. Churchill’s response.

He said, “Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

Are the stars standing in any order?

Is supplication useful?

Observable or unseen?

EXACTLY!

11.22.2025 – that time of year when

that time of year when
yellow leaves, none, or few, hang
shake against the cold

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare.

If you traveled the length and width of Beaufort County, South Carolina you might be hard pressed to find more fall color then is this little patch of trees near where I live.

Beaufort County is 40 miles long and 10 miles deep and covers the coast of South Carolina from Savannah to Charleston.

At high tide, 50% of Beaufort County is underwater.

The salt is in everything and there is not a lot of color you can get out of salt.

Growing up in Michigan, the local forests are a poor player for fall color.

Having lived in Atlanta for years, the local forests are just as lacking for spring color.

The simple pond in the picture has the very real chance to be home to both alligators and water mocassians but it sits in the middle of housing development surrounded by an lawn that invites you to bring a picnic lunch and sit and enjoy your surroundings.

If you do that and aren’t bother by the alligators or snakes, either the fire ants or the sand gnats will eat you alive.

So why do I live in this salt marsh swamp?

That one line there captured by Big Bill.

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.

Its the end of November.

It is forecast to be in the low 80’s and we are off to the beach.

Now my favorite fall colors are the numberless shades of blue in the sky and in the water of the Atlantic Ocean.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,