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.

2.8.2025 – candids, stills, portraits

candids, stills, portraits
showing way of life that is
treasured, fast fading

Adapted from the line, “Moutoussamy-Ashe’s series of monochrome images include candids of weddings, stills of a church gathering and everyday portraits of the island, showing a way of life that is treasured and fast fading.”

In the article, How an outsider captured the intimacy of Gullah Geechee life in 13 portraits by Gloria Oladipo in the Guardian.

As a resident of the low country I love this story and feel for the people who created the culture that who lived on land now in the gun sites of developers who, like Lex Luthor, have an affinity for ‘Beach Front Property.’

The Gullah culture of the low country is certainly “a way of life that is treasured and fast fading.”

As a citizen of the United States of America, I can say, I know how you feel.

1.30.2025 – shadows of the bikes

shadows of the bikes
low blue lustre tardy and
soft inrolling tide

Adapted from Sketch by Carl Sandburg in Chicago Poems as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, (Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1950).

The shadows of the ships
Rock on the crest
In the low blue lustre
Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide.

A long brown bar at the dip of the sky
Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt.

The lucid and endless wrinkles
Draw in, lapse and withdraw.
Wavelets crumble and white spent bubbles
Wash on the floor of the beach.

Rocking on the crest
In the low blue lustre
Are the shadows of the ships.


1.23.2025 – don’t be part of the

don’t be part of the
problem stay home and be part
of the solution

So said the Bullock County Sheriff after a day and night of rain, freezing rain, ice, snow and everything in between.

Don’t be part of the problem. Stay home and be part of the solution the Sheriff said.

My first reaction was to stay home and let the snow plows get out and take care of the mess.

Then it really hit me.

The State of South Carolina and the Country of Beaufort and the towns of Bluffton and Hilton Head don’t have any plows.

They don’t have any salt.

The might have sand and shovels but not what you think of for snow removal.

Sun is supposed to come out tomorrow, or maybe this weekend or maybe not for a while.

I will stay home.

I will be part of the solution.

Not a part of the problem.

1.22.2025 – snow falls in the south

snow falls in the south
and snow falls on King Neptune
snow knows no respect

January 2025 and the south sees snow.

We went for a walk along the snow filled, slushy streets.

We have to wait for the snow plows to get out and clear the roads we thought.

Then we remembered.

We are in the south.

We are in South Carolina.

There are no snow plows.

There is no salt.

There is only cold and wait for the sun.

Even King Neptune bowed his head … and went ice fishing.

12.12.2024 – sea sunset give us

sea sunset give us
keepsakes, pay us for prayers
mountain clouds bronze skies

Sea sunsets, give us keepsakes
Prairie gloamings, pay us for prayers
Mountain clouds on bronze skies —
Give us great memories
Let us have summer roses
Let us have tawny harvest haze in pumpkin time
Let us have springtime faces to toil for and play for
Let us have the fun of booming winds on long waters
Give us dreamy blue twilights — of winter evenings — to wrap us in a coat of dreaminess
Moonlight, come down — shine down, moonlight — meet every bird cry and every song calling to a hard old earth, a sweet young earth

Adapted from Good Morning America Part 21 as published in Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950).