A hundred and twenty-five feet of white sugar sand;
Violet clouds on the horizon
Shells washed up daily from the Gulf,
Drifts of wet, cupped jewels crunching underfoot.
For twenty years
Sandy-footed children
Stepping in the water basin at the door
Washing sand from their feet
But not their memories.
No stores on the island, no paved roads.
Inside, all planned for the sea and the sand.
Straw floor-mats, rolled blinds, opposing windows
Thrown wide when the tide turned,
Filling the house with air like a sail.
Walking each morning onto the front porch,
Mug in hand,
I watched my school of dolphins play,
My private performance.
We sold it,
Not our hearts.
The sound of surf
Is still in our ears like a heartbeat,
We still hear the call of gulls,
The soft break of foam on the sand.
Named for the song, so frail on its stilts,
Front blown out, we rebuilt it better,
Added decks front and back, screened porches;
Twice in one year the roofing gone, once the floor.
First year the plastic plumbing melted,
So we learned plumbing,
The twelve-year-old rebuilt an air conditioner,
Cousins nailed a stormwrack walkway,
I fixed a toilet and the fridge, set bread to rise,
The tireless master dared the septic tank.
Hot afternoons
We all lay on floors and sofas, reading.
It taught us, the island,
Shaped us.
When I slide into the tunnel of the CATscan
And the rumbling comes around me
I close my eyes and it's the surf;
I am on the porch barefooted
He is holding my hand
I hear the cry of children
Beyond the sea oats on the beach.
(c)Bea DuRette 2009
Beautiful.
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