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Sandcastle
Home today, feeling a little out of sorts. But I am constitutionally incapable of sitting still for long.
The forum doesn't get much traffic. While I feel self-conscious about seeing my name so much, still i want to keep the forum active. Here is a prose poem first written in the summer of '82. Took years to get it as right as I could. I'll admit it likely I am too attached to it.
Sandcastle
It's been so long since I've seen her, since I've had the pressure of her body company. In her place there have been the days of this land ripe Florida always giving itself over to the close and tugging moon.
I took a swim late this afternoon, to relieve day's quiet and night's incoming voices. And I felt again my childish hunger in the surprise of the breakers and the waves pushing around me. I swam with easy strokes, and I was soon past the surf and rolling in the backswells. I was swimming with the current that runs against the coastline. I traced without effort their trails beneath the waves. And then I was resting, floating on the water like a buoy, looking back to the shore. It was then I saw what I used to see frequently, in how the sky can go from pearly to polished blue, in how the late day's sun slips inside cloud strips of deeper gray-blue. The beach was even wider then. The hard sand looking as hard as it always does at low tide, even if the tide was already starting to come back in.
Walking back out of the water, I thought I would see how a sandcastle would look in the late day's light, in the early evening's tide. And there I was a child again on hands and knees, only not so small and graceful anymore. And so I dug the moat, and from that came the mound. The water was coming closer, and the mound was taking shape. Then the first tower of drip sand appeared, on top a pinacle, then it was signalling. But I thought, no, not yet. Then the other towers started coming into view at places hanging half-way down the castle's sides. And the drip sand became drying sand. It was when I saw her looking out of one of her towers, then walking through to another. It was when the castle became hers; its filligree her shiny shells of periwinkle. Surrounded by a moat, and protected inside her walls, her castle suddenly stood marvelous in the coral pink, flamingo pink, of evening's sunset skylight. Which was when I ran back out into the ocean, long-leaping over smaller waves, to wash off the sand, to swim a straight shot hard and far. And I swam not thinking, not breathing, not wanting anything anymore. Then I stopped and fish twisted around. Her towers were now burnished brown and gold. But already big people were standing around her castle. Already the far off castle belonged to the narrowing beach, the people, and to the sea. She had flown away.
Terreson then
(a much simpler man)
Last edited by Terreson, Dec/17/2016, 1:32 am
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Oct/29/2010, 2:23 pm
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Re: Sandcastle
Such a beauty and a purity to this, Tere. Love the images throughout and especially the ending. She had flown away. Yes... love it.
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Nov/3/2010, 9:25 pm
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Re: Sandcastle
Thank you, Susan, for reading and commenting. Purity is a big thing. Barely attainable. I think I hope what comes through the most is an under-tone. Something like an under-tow that can submerge the swimmer without her noticing it.
Becoming familiar with your prose talents on FB, I am hoping you will elect to play her as well. You're clearly a natural.
Tere
Last edited by Terreson, Nov/4/2010, 6:18 pm
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Nov/4/2010, 6:13 pm
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Re: Sandcastle
It was like being om that beach, reading this. I take your words and juxtapose them over my own similar memories,traveling to that feeling.
Brings to mind my own youth. Does it ever. I had this story written inspired by that bliss-ful period. My friends all thought it was "beautiful", "touching",etc.
A day after I had shared it with them, I deleted it from where I had posted it. Since it was something I wrote up in a flash of sentimentality, I had not saved it anywhere. It was just not the kind of thing I wanted to have authored. At least not that day.
I don't know what I was thinking.
Reading your piece, going there, I regret deleting that story.
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Sep/9/2011, 7:20 pm
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Re: Sandcastle
Pull the story back, Alki. Might just save the planet.
Tere
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Sep/9/2011, 8:26 pm
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Re: Sandcastle
I think a friend of mine may have it in her message log. Hope so. It was kinda entry-level, but if I find it, I will post it.
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Sep/10/2011, 9:07 am
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Re: Sandcastle
Entry-level? I once heard a poet entirely too full of himself, a formalist enamored with the metrics and prosodic feet stuff and who thought such talk was the height of poetic conversation, I once heard him call Leonard Cohen a gateway poet. What he meant is that Cohen makes for a pretty good introduction to poetry. Cohen, the second greatest chansonnier of the 20th C., bested only by Jacques Brel, a pretty good intro to poetry. You know. Entry-level like. Best not to short change yourself until the jury comes in from its deliberations.
Tere
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Sep/10/2011, 1:34 pm
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Re: Sandcastle
The entryway, the liminal, the threshold -- this is the landscape of the creative voice.
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Sep/10/2011, 3:43 pm
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Re: Sandcastle
I am so glad I found The Sandcastle. I may have lived it. I think yes. Every moment just so.
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Mar/4/2012, 7:24 pm
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