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.
a corner of the
deserted beach solitary sea
loudly claps its hands
Midday. A corner of the deserted beach.
The huge, deep, open sun on high
Has chased all the gods from the sky.
The harsh light falls like a punishment.
There are no ghosts and no souls,
And the vast, ancient, solitary sea
Loudly claps its hands.
Midday by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen as published in Obra Poética (translated by Richard Zenith) I. Lisbon: Caminho, 1990.
you cannot even
remember the questions that
weigh so in your mind
Don’t think just now of the trudging forward of thought,
but of the wing-drive of unquestioning affirmation.
It’s summer, you never saw such a blue sky,
and here they are, those white birds with quick wings,
sweeping over the waves,
chattering and plunging,
their thin beaks snapping, their hard eyes
happy as little nails.
The years to come — this is a promise —
will grant you ample time
to try the difficult steps in the empire of thought
where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.
But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,
than this deepest affinity between your eyes and the world.
The flock thickens
over the roiling, salt brightness. Listen,
maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world
in the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer,
but it must be close, for the sorrow, whose name is doubt,
is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,
but of pure submission. Tell me, what else
could beauty be for? And now the tide
is at its very crown,
the white birds sprinkle down,
gathering up the loose silver, rising
as if weightless. It isn’t instruction, or a parable.
It isn’t for any vanity or ambition
except for the one allowed, to stay alive.
It’s only a nimble frolic
over the waves. And you find, for hours,
you cannot even remember the questions
that weigh so in your mind.
Terns as published in Devotions: The selected poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver, (New York : Penguin Press, 2017).
I am often asked how many times can I go to the beach?
I reply how many times do I get?
Working on the coast I know a lot of people who live and work here and yet, do not go to the beach.
And I ask them why do they live here, put up with the crowds and humidity (ever had the ignition on your car go bad … due to salt air?) and the hurricanes if you don’t like the beach?
Never really get a good answer.
But I love the beach.
In the sunshine.
In the gray clouds.
In the winter.
In the spring.
Just sit there.
Listen,
Maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world in the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer, but it must be close.
Tell me, what else could beauty be for?
It’s only a nimble frolic over the waves.
And you find, for hours you cannot even remember the questions that weigh so in your mind.
Yes sir and Boy! Howdy but I love the beach.
slash blue, sweep of gray
scarlet patches – on the way
compose evening sky
A slash of Blue!
A sweep of Gray!
A slash of Blue! A sweep of Gray!
Some scarlet patches – on the way –
Compose an evening sky –
A little purple – slipped between –
Some Ruby Trousers – hurried on –
A Wave of Gold – A Bank of Day –
This just makes out the Morning Sky!
By Emily Dickinson as published in The Complete poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1960).
have you turned from world ..
or have you too gone crazy
for power, for things?
Adapted from the poem The Sun by Mary Oliver and the lines where she writes,
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
As published in New and Selected Poems: Volume One (Boston, Beacon Press, 2004).
Every once in awhile, Mother Nature stirs herself and shows why see is boss and cleans house leaving paths of destruction and folks, with head in hands, muttering … what happened?
On the other hand, twice a day the beaches where I live are power washed by twice daily 6 to 8 foot tides coming in at speed of 5 to 8 knots.
When I first moved to the coast, I understood the rise and fall of the tide to be horizontal.
If it was an 8 foot tide coming in and my beach chair was at the waters edge, I would have to move my chair back 8 feet to accommodate the rising tide.
I was quick to learn the rise isn’t horizontal but vertical.
I am six feet tall.
If I stand at the waters edge at low tide and the tide comes and I don’t move, by high tide, the water will 2 feet deep OVER MY HEAD.
The weight and power of water can be calculated.
To do the calculation, I’ll assume:
Twice a day, Mother Nature wipes the beaches clean on Hilton Head island, dropping the equivalent of almost 8 tons of TNT per kilometer of beach to do the job.
And the beach at Hilton Head is 20 Kilimoters long from the Hilton Headland to South Point at Sea Pines.
That means 160 tons of TNT that would take 32 B17 World War 2 bombers every 12 hours.
The tides come in and go out.
Little stands in the way.
Sure, mankind could drop the bombs and clear the beach but when that’s over the beach is destroyed and there is no clear plan to restore the beach.
Things do seems to get messed up when mankind gets involved in any way.
When Mother Nature finishes up, the beach is renewed, restored and we start all over again.
And its been happening since the world’s weather and such stabilized itself after the Noah episode.
As Lincoln said of the Gettysburg Address … “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here …”
Taken out of context to be sure but it captures what I am trying to express.
No permanence.
That tide is coming twice a day and nothing we can do to change, stop or impact it.
Yet we sit and watch the tide come in, with the sun and the blue sky and what we think is,
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
In many many many ways, in this day and age, I thank God for those feelings.
when the tide goes out
little water world becomes
quiet and lovely
It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef.
But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely.
The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.
Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae.
Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock.
And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food.
Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers.
And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey.
The snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly.
The lovely, colored world is glassed over.
Hermit crabs like frantic children scamper on the bottom sand.
And now one, finding an empty snail shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft body to the enemy for a moment, and then pops into the new shell.
A wave breaks over the barrier, and chums.
From Cannery row by John Steinbeck (Viking, New York, 1945)
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