Returning to the Beach

Returning to the beach is more than a journey across distance. It is a return to a place that once felt like home.

Written after moving several hours inland, these poems explore what it means to come back to the shore in search of comfort, memory, and renewal. They notice the small things—the movement of water, shifting light, weathered shells, changing seasons, and the quiet life along the sand. The beach is not merely a beautiful setting, but a familiar presence: a place that holds what has been lost, makes room for what still hurts, and offers moments of peace without demanding that everything be healed.

This collection follows the emotional distance between living near the ocean and becoming someone who must travel to reach it. Each return carries longing, recognition, and change. The shore remains familiar, but neither the poet nor the beach is ever exactly the same.

These are poems about returning to a place of refuge—and discovering what it can still give us when home has become somewhere we can visit, but no longer stay.

A Natural Gathering

As if the force of the waves
was not enough
to remind us
of natural forces
greater than observation...
a thunderstorm comes in
bringing in a natural light show,
the rain and echoing thunder
drown out any sound
from the rhythmic waves.
People crawn beneath the pier -
There is nothing like nature
to bring people together
for a show.

An Unexpected Invitation

The beach
has no knowledge or memory
of the season's change.
A summer sun
bakes Autumn sands
today,
in October,
and the tide
and the waves,
bring summer waters -
warm, hot,
inviting.

Childlike Imagination

At the beach
by thewater
a very small kid's bucket
a lady and a small girl
are looking deep
and saying something.
They turn over the bucket
and from where I sit
there is nothing in
that little bucket.
Maybe if I was there
with that little girl
I would find fascination
in tiny things
that can only be seen
from that certain
point of view.

I want to believe the Warmth Will Return

On this cold autumn beach,
I stare at th ewaves
and I don't know if
I'm looking
forward or backward,
in time
but I remember
the warmth
and the life
that was here
and I want to believe
and I want to hope
that this season
of death
is only temporary
and I want to believe
and I want to hope
that that warmth
will return.

Loss of Self & Identity

Sometimes I'm afraid
that having found myself
my voice and my self expression
that the ideas will stop coming
that I'll stop writing...
maybe losing some sense of myself.
My writing -
being a poet -
it's who I am.
And every poet,
every writer
faces the fear
that the ideas will one day run out
and all that will remain
are old poems,
old ideas,
like memories of what once was...
like someone you loved
and lost...
but it's not exactly like htat.
These poems,
the ideas I've shared
will always be there
like children,
like anything else that is a part of ourselves
- a creation...
and my words are still alive
and hopefully always will be.

The Color Of Death

I saw a little boy
carrying a dead fish
at the beach.
The fish was flat - decayed -
the color of wet sand
viewed through my tinted glasses,
what added to the gloom of the day.
It made me think of change.

Here it was
a warm October day and
just 3 months ago
this beach was packed
with people,
and water more inviting.

These days are getting colder.
I hate the cold;
it reminds me of something inside myself;
something not just cold
but something dead -
life isn't like the seasons;
there's little guarantee
that the sun and warmth
will return.