Vacation Diary 2: The Low Tide Sonnets

I picture you beside me in the sand.
   Your freckled back blinds like a second sun,
So pale that if I touched you with my hand
   The imprint would remain till day was done.
With a blue towel as pillow for your head,
   You face the ocean and you close your eyes.
I watch your creamy legs slowly turn red
   Like shy twin sisters blushing with surprise.
Your toes curl in the sand like happy moles.
   After a while you say, “This side is done.”
With humming sigh, over your body rolls,
   And you present your sweet face to the sun
     And watch the clouds as back and forth they fly
     Like lonely islands in the ocean sky.

You purr as I rub sunscreen on your back.
   Your breathing is a living tide of peace.
I shift and fidget, but you have the knack
   Of being still when stillness brings release.
It is a gift, to my impatient soul,
   How easily you match the given day --
I clutch at moments, grabbing for a goal;
   You ride them till they crest and smooth away.
I must be up and doing with a will,
   Walking and whistling, talking to the wind.
You mock me from the sand, content and still,
   Like God’s forgiveness mocks the man who’s sinned:
     Showing me by example what to do,
     Shaming me with the truth to lie with you.


So down I go beside you, where I feel
   The coolness of your body like a breeze.
These are the only moments that are real:
   Everything else -– the worries, the unease,
All the regrets for undone or unplanned,
   The yearning and the grasping after toys --
Everything falls away like grains of sand,
   Leaving the most miraculous of joys:
Two people on a seashore, side by side,
   Warmed by a star million of miles away,
Washed by the water of a moon-pulled tide
   On one blue island in the Milky Way
     Where chance and destiny together smiled
     On you and me, and made our love their child.

copyright 2010 Matthew J Wells