Summer’s day wake-up; time

is wondrously spent waking up 

during these summer months,

where solace soothes the eyes.

O’ those beach days, gone were

they too soon; crowded crowds,

lingering lines—all piled up

about the Boardwalk. Pineapple

bathing suits, smoothies from 

vendors you trust at first sight.

Sand beneath one’s feet, rustling

into one’s shoes, entwined within

those fragments of seashells. Black

was it all. Heat radiated through

the sand, flowing deeply beneath 

the ground, where autumn had begun

to seep through, channeling a soft

Marshal of Wind, commanding a 

sudden start to the early weeks of 

September. The weather cools 

significantly; nature’s evanescent

summertime magic, now replaced 

by a feeble tarp of light, frigid as

it is. O’ the day cools. O’ the

night freezes. By soon, December

strikes one’s lips as chapped, one’s

skin as coarse, one’s eyes as hail.

So, gone were the beaches, buried

beneath the advent of time, advancing

only one way, that is, with the current

of time. North of Sun. South of

Cold. Gone were the beaches that

ol’ Summer’s tale had told.