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.
go down to the shore in the morning – excuse me I have work to do
Based on the poem I Go Down To The Shore by Mary Oliver.
I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.
In an interview quoted in Wikipedia, Mary Oliver said, “[I] go off to my woods, my ponds, my sun-filled harbor, no more than a blue comma on the map of the world but, to me, the emblem of everything.”
I drive towards the Atlantic Coast when I go in to the office for work.
I end up a couple blocks from the coast line.
In the grand scheme of maps of the United States, my desk is a line, a razor’s edge away from the ocean and the waves that, depending on the hour, that are rolling in or moving out.
Not miserable but plaintive, I say as I park my car, what shall, what should I do?
I stand and I listen.
Some mornings I can hear the waves.
And the sea says in its lovely voice, “Excuse me, I have work to do … too.“
I live in the what is called the low country of South Carolina, along the Atlantic coast, just north of Savannah.
I work closer to the beach than I live and I am able to spend my lunch time breaks walking along the wave line dodging the people who are spending untold amounts of money to be here for just one week.
We get to the beach when ever we can and in season, I spend a lot of time in the water.
I don’t worry to much about the things that live in the ocean.
They leave me alone and I leave them alone and we do just fine.
You see, Ms. Weise writes that “One concerning shift has been in the range of box jellyfish, some species of which can be deadly.
“The box jellyfish that we have an abundance of in Hawaii has recently caused injuries in various beaches in Florida. The changing range of these jellies and increasing human population density, these things all work together in U.S. waters,” said Angel Yanagihara, a research professor in the department of tropical medicine at the University of Hawaii who studies jellyfish venom.”
The only thing I know about box jelly fish is what Bill Bryon wrote in his book on travels in Australia, In a sunburned country (Broadway Books, New York, 2000) when Mr. Bryson said this:
(Remember this sounds much better if you read in the slow cadence of Mr. Bryson’s audio readings – especially that last sentence.)
But all of these are as nothing compared with the delicate and diaphanous box jellyfish, the most poisonous creature on earth. We will hear more of the unspeakable horrors of this little bag of lethality when we get to the tropics, but let me offer here just one small story.
In 1992 a young man in Cairns, ignoring all the warning signs, went swimming in the Pacific waters at a place called Holloways Beach. He swam and dove, taunting his friends on the beach for their prudent cowardice, and then began to scream with an inhuman sound.
It is said that there is no pain to compare with it.
The young man staggered from the water, covered in livid whiplike stripes wherever the jellyfish’s tentacles had brushed across him, and collapsed in quivering shock. Soon afterward emergency crews arrived, inflated him with morphine, and took him away for treatment.
And here’s the thing.
Even unconscious and sedated …
he was still screaming.
The idea of Box Jellyfish off the Carolina Coast would certainly make an impact on I spent my free time.
I had do some more research and was happy to have wikipedia tell me that 51 species of box jellyfish were known as of 2018. These are grouped into two orders and eight families.A few new species have since been described, and it is likely that additional undescribed species remain.
And not all of them have the terrible stings and venom as described by Mr. Bryson.
I was fascinated by the caption of a photograph of a jelly that had washed up on the beach that read: Box Jellyfish species Chiropsalmus quadrumanus; contradict the belief that Cubozoans are semelparity.
I was relieved!
And I don’t even know what it means.
Great words anyway!
I have yet to be stung, bit, tasted or in anyway made contact with by anything that lives in the ocean side from bumping into a dead cannon ball jelly fish so that doesn’t count as being something that lives.
I have read all the literature on what to do if I am ever stung by a jelly fish.
In my mind are countless remedies that are listed on posters, websites, beach guides and other informational websites so I feel I know what to do if I ever did get stung.
Then I got to the bottom of the Wikipedia page on Jellyfish.
Who ever wrote the contact had read all the same source information I had and had had enough.
For Wikipedia states:
Although commonly recommended in folklore and even some papers on sting treatment, there is no scientific evidence that:
urine,
ammonia,
meat tenderizer,
sodium bicarbonate,
boric acid,
lemon juice,
fresh water,
steroid cream,
alcohol,
cold packs,
papaya,
or hydrogen peroxide will disable further stinging, and these substances may even hasten the release of venom.
Heat packs have been proven for moderate pain relief.
The use of pressure immobilization bandages, methylated spirits, or vodka is generally not recommended for use on jelly stings.
Well GEE WHIZ .. there goes all my reading.
What does work?
Well this article says vinegar and that vinegar is made available on Australian beaches and in other places with venomous jellyfish.
But just to cover itself, the article also states, “A 2014 study reported that vinegar also increased the amount of venom released from already-discharged nematocysts; however, this study has been criticized on methodological grounds.”
For me?
Happy that Box Jellyfish species Chiropsalmus quadrumanus contradicts the belief that Cubozoans are semelparity, I will continue to walk along the beach.
If I could somehow block Bill Bryson out of my brain …
more sun in sunshine more time for the sun to shine tip toward the sun
It is the longest day of the year.
Where I live in the low country of South Carolina, the sun comes up at 6:17 a.m. and sets at 8:32 p.m.
Where I grew, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the sun comes up at 6:03 a.m. and sets at 9:25 p.m.
The day and the sunshine lasts longer up north.
Is there more sun in the day up there?
Why do the folks in Michigan get more time for the sun to shine?
I get it that we live on a sphere but I have always had a hard time getting my brain around those great circle routes based on the Mercator projector maps I grew up with.
I was taught the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
But I was also taught that the shortest trip between New York and London was by way of Greenland and Iceland.
Today is the longest day of year on this planet and its length depends on where you are.
Wikipedia says that the earth will start to tip at 4:50 p.m. EDT but I don’t know that I will feel it.
It’s not like the egg balancing trick on the equinox.
But it would be interesting to feel a shift the way the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise would would tip back and forth during an enemy attack.
SOLSTICE! … HANG ON!
If that would happen just be glad to not be one of those fellers wearing the red shirts that usually died in the first five minutes of the show.
But I digress.
It is easy to explain but not easy to determine, according to wikipedia which states: Unlike the equinox, the solstice time is not easy to determine. The changes in solar declination become smaller as the Sun gets closer to its maximum/minimum declination. The days before and after the solstice, the declination speed is less than 30 arcseconds per day which is less than 1⁄60 of the angular size of the Sun, or the equivalent to just 2 seconds of right ascension.
This difference is hardly detectable with indirect viewing based devices like sextant equipped with a vernier, and impossible with more traditional tools like a gnomon or an astrolabe. It is also hard to detect the changes in sunrise/sunset azimuth due to the atmospheric refraction changes. Those accuracy issues render it impossible to determine the solstice day based on observations made within the 3 (or even 5) days surrounding the solstice without the use of more complex tools.
You have to love the words:
solar declination maximum/minimum declination right ascension vernier atmospheric refraction astrolabe sunrise/sunset azimuth
And then the statement, impossible to determine without the use of more complex tools.
More complex?
More time for sun but can you pack more sun into sunshine?
I am sure you can’t.
But it sure seems brighter done here on the beach than anywhere else I have been.
am I too old to see the fairies dance – cannot find them any more …
Now, In June, When the night is a vast softness Filled with blue stars, And broken shafts of moon-glimmer Fall upon the earth, Am I too old to see the fairies dance? I cannot find them any more.
After Many Springs in the book The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes (Alfred A. Knopf, 1926).
Went to the beach yesterday and with the tide being high had to walk a bit up the beach to find a place away from the crowds.
The sun was clear and hot and bright and the beach sand burned our toes so we dropped our chairs and ran into the water.
The water was wavy and splashy and cool and we spent most of the afternoon in the surf.
It was nice to be away from the crowd.
We could see them a ways away, lining the beach with their umbrellas and shibumi beach shades flying in the the breeze.
We could see them but with wind and waves, we couldn’t hear them a ways away down the beach.
We stayed in the waves, played in the water.
Time to leave, we packed up and carried our gear back to through the beach crowd and threaded our way to the wooden walkway down to the showers to spray off the sand and salt.
While waiting, we exchanged pleasantries with the crowd and admired the babies.
We asked one Mom, surrounded by sun burned kids, if they had a good beach day?
Mom said “You bet!”
She turned and look at her kids and looked back and said, “Though it was kind of scary when they cleared the water and closed the beach those three times the lifeguard spotted sharks.”
No Haiku For You 