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.
small wonder that men hold boats in the secret place cradle to the grave
Men who ache allover for tidiness and compactness in their lives often find relief for their pain in the cabin of a thirty-foot sailboat at anchor in a sheltered cove.
Here the sprawling panoply of The Home is compressed in orderly miniature and liquid delirium, suspended between the bottom of the sea and the top of the sky, ready to move on in the morning by the miracle of canvas and the witchcraft of rope.
It is small wonder that men hold boats in the secret place of their mind, almost from the cradle to the grave.
From the essay The Sea and the Wind that Blows by E. B. White and published in The Ford Times, June 1963 and re-published in The Essays of EB White by EB White (Harper and Row, New York, 1977).
where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in, I rest dream, sit on the deck
Based on the poem, Waiting, by Carl Sandburg in Other Days as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.
Today I will let the old boat stand Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway. And I will rest and dream and sit on the deck Watching the world go by And take my pay for many hard days gone I remember.
I will choose what clouds I like In the great white fleets that wander the blue As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail. And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me And put on my brow the touch of the world’s great will.
Daybreak will hear the heart of the boat beat, Engine throb and piston play In the quiver and leap at call of life. To-morrow we move in the gaps and heights On changing floors of unlevel seas And no man shall stop us and no man follow For ours is the quest of an unknown shore And we are husky and lusty and shouting-gay.
On my first morning bike ride as an Islander …
I pass this way each day that I drive to work.
I would take a photo with my phone held in one hand as I crossed the bridge in the middle of the island.
Now I ride my bike to the edge of the marsh.
I can sit and I will choose what clouds I like.
In the great white fleets that wander the blue.
As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail.
And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me.
And put on my brow the touch of the world’s great will.
boxes on beach are empty shake ’em nails loosen they have been somewhere
Adapted from the poem Sand Scribblings by Carl Sandburg in Smoke and Steel as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.
The wind stops, the wind begins. The wind says stop, begin.
A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor. The shovel changes, the floor changes.
The sandpipers, maybe they know. Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell. Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses.
The sandpipers cheep ‘Here’ and get away. Five of them fly and keep together flying.
Night hair of some sea woman Curls on the sand when the sea leaves The salt tide without a good-by.
Boxes on the beach are empty. Shake ’em and the nails loosen. They have been somewhere.
This is special to me today as I know the boxes on the beach are empty.
They are empty because we emptied them.
We know they have been somewhere, because we filled them and moved them to the island … were we now live.
Got to go ride my bike to the NEARBY beach and scribble in the sand.
up, down beaches, lost … freedom, exhilarating indescribable
Beach on Hilton Head Island as storm front comes up from behind me …
Adapted from a passage in the book, The Racketeer by John Grisham (Doubleday: New York, 2012), where Mr. Grisham writes:
I stare at the moon over the ocean.
I breathe the salty air and listen to the waves gently roll ashore.
Freedom is exhilarating, and indescribable.
I can’t wait to feel sand between my toes.
There are a few early birds on the beach, and I hustle down there.
No one notices; no one cares.
People who roam aimlessly up and down beaches are lost in their own worlds, and I am quickly getting lost in mine.
Obviously I think of the priceless moments I get on my lunch to breathe the salty air and listen to the waves gently roll ashore and I feel the sand between my toes.
But that one phrase there.
Freedom is exhilarating, and indescribable.
Are there any other words that can better describe what makes America great?
With the all the effort being put into making America great again, why do I find my freedoms less exhilarating and less free.
