Crystal Cove: January 2012

A cold ocean breeze blows through my clothes as I walk
across the sand, sandals in hand, alone in my thoughts.
Empty beach shacks cluster on the bluff above,
leaning their splintered, bleached bones into the wind
like arthritic white-haired men bent over open graves.
Hopping along a broken fence rail, a murder of crows watch
me through bead-black eyes and mock me with their caws
while waves foam over my toes and urge me toward its depths.

It is an old moment that I know well and welcome often.

Up ahead, a woman sits on the beach, alone, sifting
handfuls of sand through trembling fingers, smoothing
tiny grains of memory into the shape of a mermaid.
Its perfect lines make me stop to remark that it’s so beautiful
there must be a body hidden within the layer of sand
that she’s sculpting, and she looks up from her work,
her eyes moist with the grief of stricken mother
and replies that her daughter died the day before.

For an instant I stand stupid in the sand
and can only mumble my condolences
while she gazes up through a glaze of tears.
Then she returns to her work and it hits me
that the tide will rise and wash her mermaid
into its arms, and it will disperse into the ocean,
but the perfect image of her daughter
will never dissolve from this mother’s glistening eyes.