a day on the beach with my wife...

Pelicans dive, hovering over red flag surges,

the surf surges, and breeze speeding pelicans

searching, search then dive, one flailing and falling

in and out of the murky green wave that closes

in on it, while closer to shore a huddle

of (gray, white, and black) seagulls sense from afar,

surveying the sand for, a crumb of the salty Saltine

cracker to fall from that person’s lips, screaming

and prattling for even second chances to secure

such a morsel, smithereens of a snack,

while stiff, cooler winds propel the sunlit

kites of nearby kite surfers, a smattering

of souls laughing, smiling, and waist deep swimming,

trying to train their boards, long depth rudder equipped,

into the waves, while drifts of dried sand spray along

the sandy wetted beach surfaces with fine

powdery plumes and lines of swift smokey trails

and a sand castle artist buckets and waters his grains,

seeding God’s ideas with his own creations,

forming shapes, his three daughters on Styrofoam

surfboards, every now and then fetching buckets

of water for this, his emerging work, proving

to be too windy for the kite surfers,

they pack up and go home, while the pelicans

keep working the surf just beyond the realm

of human activity and an electric sand

scooter like skateboard swifts by, while a lone

man sets up a lawn chair and a bait bucket

and tries throwing a baited line with a gloved hand

into the same surf that the pelicans are actively

fishing, while some others dig holes with shovels

to the delight of small children whom are fascinated

with the filling of one hole each time a wave breaks across it,

while still others scrape the sand for shells, filling

flitting plastic grocery sacks, and a yellow butterfly

darts by seemingly swept into this, a continuous

current of sweeping wind, its direction, a who-knows-where wind,

and the fisherman hangs it up shortly after

starting and the pelicans, whom seem to have finally

been satisfied with the day’s catch, call it quits.

Gary Edward Geraci