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