Stretched out on the BEACH, I can feel the sand shift. I sought solitude and found it: no random conversation, no child to CAPER by, no traffic sounds. Only the birds. I hold an ACUTE awareness that my beloved OCEAN is not what it was. And in this moment, this frightening global loss tangles itself up with personal loss: the loss of dreams, of childhood fantasies, of people loved and gone. I sit with this, the emotions heaving and rolling like the waves. I shift my position, the sand stretches out before me.

Georg’ann

Watching out the kitchen window
Her back to me as she walks away
Slightest hesitation, barely a PAUSE
in motion but it’s there.
We sense each other, palpable
the band stretching has yet to break.
Everything in me suspends
Knife in my hand ceases to slice
BREAD, prism rainbows GLEAM
on the toaster, the walls, the cat’s belly.
Even the foam on my coffee cup
as if I were a sorceress casting spells
I will her these dancing rays of light
magical devotions to carry should assurance be needed
All this in a nanosecond
Bread knife continues gently sawing
through the hearty WHEAT
Today the vastness of the OCEAN
is contained in the space between
the counter and the garden gate

Heather