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.

10.20.2021 – beach breeze breezily

beach breeze breezily
breezes across the beaches
breezy beachy days

I grew up in West Michigan.

The beaches of Lake Michigan were not far away and I was there often.

For as much time that I spent there, I cannot say that the pleasures of a warm breeze off the water happened often.

Warm water at the beaches of Lake Michigan at the height of summer meant water around 70 degrees.

Any further out, the water stayed around 60.

With a breeze off the water, you tried to lay as flat as you could on your beach towel to get out of the wind.

Now living in South Carolina coast, the warm breeze off the Atlantic Ocean is a wonder.

And this was in October.

Part of a series based on an afternoon spent at the beach on Hilton Head Island.

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.

Click here for more Haiku from the BEACH

9.27.2021 – see beach with kids eyes

see beach with kids eyes
wider, wetter, sandier
flatter than I see

For me much of the fun of being at the beach is watching little kids.

Little kids who can see nothing but the openness, the WIDE openness of the beach and the ocean.

What would you do?

I can tell you what they do.

They act like kids.

Careless kids.

Not kids being careless.

But kids who could care less.

Kids who are without a care.

What a way to be.

For the eyes of kids.

Part of a series based on an afternoon spent at the beach on Hilton Head Island.

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.

Click here for more Haiku in the BEACH category —

9.18.2021 – wave on wave on wave

wave on wave on wave
curling, splashing, rolling in
each wave remakes beach

Part of a series based on afternoons spent at the beach on Hilton Head Island.

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.

Click here for more Haiku from the BEACH

9.6.2021 – How to possess it

How to possess it,
how to possess, to hold on
to the floating train

Adapted from the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:

A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.’

But beauty is fugitive, being frequently found in places to which we may never return or else resulting from rare conjunctions of season, light and weather.

How then to possess it, how to hold on to the floating train, the halvalike bricks or the English valley?

The camera provides one option. Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.

According to the website, GOOD READS, Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why.

As I said in the section on Architecture , what I find irresistible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.

I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.

Neat trick in writing a book.

If I knew how to do that, hey, I would.

8.7.2021 – sand sand in the wind

sand sand in the wind
blowing against eyes face
gritty in my teeth

Part of a series based on afternoons spent at the beach on Hilton Head Island.

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.

Click here for more Haiku from the BEACH