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.

7.28.2026 – to see, the craving

to see, the craving
of sailors, as of rest of
blind humanity

Adapted from a passage in Chapter 27 of The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1906), where Mr. Conrad writes:

To see! to see! —

this is the craving of the sailor, as of the rest of blind humanity.

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

I have heard a reserved, silent man, with no nerves to speak of, after three days of hard running in thick south-westerly weather, burst out passionately: “I wish to God we could get sight of something!”

Looking ahead to next day, the next week, the next month … I wish to God I could get sight of something.

I know it should be enough that I know that God sees far far ahead of anything I could see and I should let it sit there with God.

Truthfully I would LOVE to be able to let it sit there.

But as Mr. Conrad also writes: Love and regret go hand in hand in this world of changes swifter than the shifting of the clouds reflected in the mirror of the sea.

7.20.2026 – I am but a shell

I am but a shell
a dim, tremulous murmur
from great days long dead

I am a shell. From me you shall not hear
The splendid tramplings of insistent drums,
The orbed gold of the viol’s voice that comes,
Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear.
Yet, if you hold me close against the ear,
A dim, far whisper rises clamorously,
The thunderous beat and passion of the sea,
The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.

Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings,
Making even Love in music audible,
And earth one glory. I am but a shell
That moves, not of itself, and moving sings;
Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed,
A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.

A Minor Poet by Stephen Vincent Benet as published in Young Adventure: A Book of Poems by Stephen Vincent Benet (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918).

I am a shell. From me you shall not hear.

A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.

7.15.2026 – the squall sweeps gray-winged

the squall sweeps gray-winged
sense summer anger passing
summer gentleness

Squall line coming in from the Atlantic Ocean, looking towards Tybee from Hilton Head Island

The squall sweeps gray-winged across the obliterated hills,
And the startled lake seems to run before it;
From the wood comes a clamor of leaves,
Tugging at the twigs,
Pouring from the branches,
And suddenly the birds are still.

Thunder crumples the sky,
Lightning tears at it.

And now the rain!
The rain — thudding — implacable —
The wind, reveling in the confusion of great pines!

And a silver sifting of light,
A coolness;
A sense of summer anger passing,
Of summer gentleness creeping nearer —
Penitent, tearful,
Forgiven!

Squall as published in A Canopic Jar by Leonora Speyer von Stosch (E.P. Dutton & company: New York, 1921).

According to Wikipedia, Leonora Speyer or Lady Speyer was an American poet and violinist. She was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Count Ferdinand von Stosch of Manze in Silesia, who fought for the Union in the American Civil War, and Julia Schayer, who was a writer.

However much money she had or the Speyer’s had or the von Stosch’s had, they had enough so that she had her portrait painted by John Singer Sargent.

Mr. Sargent made a lot of money painting portraits of people who had a lot of money.

It was Mr. Sargent who said that they hardest part of painting portraits of people who had a lot money was that he had to listen to those people talk while he painted.

As he put it, “Painting a portrait would be quite amusing if one were not forced to talk while working…. What a nuisance having to entertain the sitter and to look happy when one feels wretched.”

6.20.2026 – summer when the lungs

summer when the lungs
of the earth take a long breath
I look for you

Do you know how the dream looms?

how if summer misses one of us the two of us miss summer –

Summer when the lungs of the earth take a long breath for the change to low contralto singing mornings when the green corn leaves first break through the black loam-

And another long breath for the silver soprano melody of the moon songs in the light nights when the earth is lighter than a feather, the iron mountains lighter than a goose down-

So I shall look for you in the light nights then, in the laughter of slats of silver under a hill hickory.

In the listening tops of the hickories, in the wind motions of the hickory shingle leaves, in the imitations of slow sea water on the shingle silver in the wind –

I shall look for you.

Silver Wind by Carl Sandburg as published in Smoke and Steel in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950).

On the beach today.

In the listening tops of the hickories, in the wind motions of the hickory shingle leaves, in the imitations of slow sea water on the shingle silver in the wind.

I look for you.

But you took the picture.

BTW, recently talked with my sister who had the opportunity to spend some time on the Gulf of MEXICO and on the Lake Michigan shore.

She noticed that in going to the Gulf to swim, the water was always warm … every day … you could count on it.

On Lake Michigan, the question every day if not every hour is, how does the water feel right now?

A stiff north wind and the water on the beach on Lake Michigan can go from 70s to 60s in a matter of hours.

Today for me, the water was 82.

The air was in the high 80s.

It will be that way all summer long.

And another long breath for the silver soprano melody of the moon song.

6.13.2026 – tell me where all

then tell me where all
past years are and teach me to
hear mermaids singing

Go and catch a falling star;
Get with child a mandrake root;
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging;
And find
What wind
Serves t’advance an honest mind.

Song by John Donne as printed in The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1918 (1939 edition) but first published the first edition of Donne’s collected poems in 1633.

Back to 1633 when the poem Song was first printed.

Back to 1989 when I finally got to go to the beach by myself for the first time with the lady.

Tell me where all past years are.