Seeing

Pink quartz sand, tinted afternoon warm,
cold water wash over pine needles,
broken cedar branches bowed by breeze.

With my eyes closed, I am 16 again,
my skin feels the same, my nose knows no different,
here on the beach stretched out on a blanket.
The coarse grass rustles at the top of the dune,
as it did decades ago.

Sugar plum trees sag, purple fruits sway,
wax wings whistle under the branches.
Sea gulls skree passing by overhead.

With my eyes open, I can see the same blue,
my sight finds nothing different in the passing clouds.
So long as I do not move, the world has fallen away
and back to the place where I was his,
as I was decades ago.

Lake waves lull, soft rapid rhythm.
Blue melds grey as surf susurrus shifts,
crows warn a northeaster coming.

But cooling air and raindrops demand the truth,
I am not a girl on a beach any longer.
There is only a woman, gathering a wet blanket,
who can see much further than Superior's horizon,
as she wished she could so long ago.

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Copyright 2015 by Femme Malheureuse
Photo: Heidi Blanton via Flickr