These were written @ Higbee beach in Cape May NJ known for “Cape May Diamonds“, also if you walk far enough south you hit Sunset Beach with the USS Atlantus (a concrete hull ship that sank just offshore), a little ditty about Higbee, I went there to find some new/less used beaches on vacation (when I am on the beach I am interested in walking the tide and looking at nature not sunbathing), so I walked all the way down the beach south (about 1.2 miles) from where Higbee meets David Douglass park (Cape May / Lewes ferry), so, in my infinite wisdom I decided to take the nature trail back instead of the beach… oh boy, first, I was wearing my crocs, and they ain’t walking shoes, secondly I left my sun screen and other stuff out of my pack because this is october and well… I didn’t expect 80 degrees and blazing direct burning sun ! so… I was hella wrong, it was like I was moses trekking through the wilderness, all sand (and if you have tried to hike in sand you know how much fun that is! – not!), sand and scrub brush… and a winding trail more confusing than choose your own adventure books, it was torture, I still have the remnants of blisters on my feet (2 weeks later), winding paths not in the scrub forest, all out in the open in the valleys of dunes just off the beach which I thought I was near the surf (but every time I endeavored to find it I couldn’t), and of course there was no other people on this trail, thankfully I have a good deal of hiking experience from my youth @ camp Sequoia in the Catskills, so after 3 hours of hiking (and cursing) I finally made it back to civilization (the parking lot), man, it sucked…. I am a hard headed person but this wore me down certainly, so maybe that adds to the ingredients of my poetry ? maybe… so here it is…

Upon Higbee Beach, Cape May NJ 10.8.2018

I walk the beach whole

I learn the shore lines

the neighborhoods of waves

the bindings of tides

between dunes and break,

I stride casually

soft wet sand sinking slightly under foot

beach sandals in one hand by straps

walking over footprints fading

as if I’m never there,

passing sun bathers and gazers

wondering what sort of tide brought them in

and from what inland shores

accents and manners float

in and out with a subtle roar

ghost crabs, run to their burrows

horseshoes right themselves

deft barb on tail

turning like clocks in the coming surf

turning to noon out to sea

these ancient ambassadors

far older than these

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Upon Higbee Beach (pt 2), Cape May NJ 10.8.2018

the sand, the sound

the tide, the wind

broken footsteps trail off

the sun travels deliberately across the sky

the beach is low, for now, exposed

tide peels and shipwrecks, and their crews be told

left up upon the beach, stranded until tidal moon

or worse yet

found by the mouth of a hunting gull,

time seems to stand still, even within all this motion

but if ever there was a picture frame

to explain the seduction of passing time

this is that masterpiece

a picasso, a davinci, a michealangelo’s chapel

so easily this recognized among all other work

for this, strokes struck by nature herself

my own steps break off into the distance now

as if a part of this whole existence

at least for a little while

at least, for this memory

as least, nor that moment passed, just now