by chance or nature’s
changing course untrimmed – but thy
summer shall not fade

 Sonnet 18 for the 18th Day of October, 2024.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.

 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

This is the beach access at marker 56A on Hilton Head Island on Tuesday, October 15, 2024.

A summer day any where else maybe but with a sea breeze at 20 miles an hour out of the north, the beach sparkled and shined and made you feel happy for a warm coat.

The sand is soft but with careful steps you can make to the tide line and the hard sand and keep your shoes on.

But with the wind whipping about the beach, blowing the sand, its your socks that get filled with sand.

Cold but with that sun shining on the water …

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.

 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

no, it will be great
sand in hair, shoes, sandwiches
and then in our mouths …

No, it will be great. We’ll get sand in our hair. We’ll get sand in our shoes. We’ll get sand in our sandwiches and then in our mouths. We’ll get sunburned and windburned. And when we get tired of sitting, we can have a paddle in water so cold it actually hurts. At the end of the day we’ll set off at the same time as 37,000 other people and get in such a traffic jam that we won’t get home till midnight. I can make trenchant observations about your driving skills, and the children can pass the time sticking each other with sharp objects. It will be such fun.’

The tragic thing is that because my wife is English, and therefore beyond the reach of reason where salt water is concerned, she really will think it’s fun. Frankly I have never understood the British attachment to the seaside.

From The Complete Notes by Bill Bryson, Doubleday, London, 2000.

I walk along the ocean shore on my lunch break when I can.

Yesterday as Hurricane Milton approached the Gulf Shore of Florida, the day here was gray and gloomy.

Not a day for the beach.

The local park with the pirate ship jungle gym was full of kids in shorts running and screaming along with Dads in shorts watching while juggling cell phones and Moms in shorts, sitting on benches, wrapped in beach towels, wondered what happened to their sunny beach vacation.

The next day the sun was out.

Those families packed up and hit the beach.

But the sun was out.

There was a rip current going south that would sweep anyone off their feet.

But the sun was out.

The red flag was up.

But the sun was out.

The wind whipped along the beach sending sand flying in mini tornadoes about 6 inches about the shore, sand blasting everything in its path.

But the sun was out.

Umbrellas and beach tents were anchored by cinder blocks.

But the sun was out and the families hit the beach.

It will take more than a rip current, a red flag and a sandy breeze to keep those Moms from their sunny beach vacation.

I can hear those Moms as they packed up.

No, it will be great.

We’ll get sand in our hair.

We’ll get sand in our shoes.

We’ll get sand in our sandwiches and then in our mouths.

We’ll get sunburned and windburned.

And when we get tired of sitting, we can have a paddle in water so cold it actually hurts.

It will be such fun!

At least they were already on the Island.

I am waiting to
get some intimations of
immortality

The view from the beach for the last day of summer or the first day of fall, 2024.

The Haiku is adapted from an excerpt of the poem, I am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his book, A Coney Island of the Mind.

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

A renaissance of wonder.

Is there a greater illustration, perpetually and forever, of a renaissance of wonder then to watch little kids at the beach.

I am waiting to experience this like a kid again.

Youth’s dumb green fields come back again.

I am waiting for that too.

I know too much and I want to know less and just enjoy it all as a child.

Immortality!

I am waiting.

is glittering in
the first rays of the sun, which
has not yet reached us

August 10 – The air at sunrise is clear and pure, and the morning extremely cold, but beautiful.

A lofty snow peak of the mountain is glittering in the first rays of the sun, which has not yet reached us.

The long mountain wall to the east, rising two thousand feet abruptly from the plain, behind which we see the peaks, is still dark, and cuts clear against the glowing sky.

A fog, just risen from the river, lies along the base of the mountain.

A little before sunrise, the thermometer was at 35°, and at sunrise 33°.

Water froze last night, and fires are very comfortable.

The scenery becomes hourly more interesting and grand, and the view here is truly magnificent; but, indeed, it needs something to repay the long prairie journey of a thousand miles.

The sun has just shot above the wall, and makes a magical change.

The whole valley is glowing and bright, and all the mountain peaks are gleaming like silver.

Though these snow mountains are not the Alps, they have their own character of grandeur and magnificence, and will doubtless find pens and pencils to do them justice.

From the Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains – 1842 by John C. Fremont as reprinted in The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry edited by John Conron, London, Oxford University Press 1973.