Tag Archives: Beach

Poetry

Byronic heroes are people, too

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Lord Byron, So, we’ll go no more a roving

All these books in my library — lives lived

out, words spent, atria emptied of their 

blood. I see them and realise that I do not

have much time. But, like all the rest, I am

bound in webs of responsibility and class

and aspiration. A small cottage by the beach

with a well-stocked library and a fire in the

hearth where we could spend our evenings 

before the dark descends. And, perhaps, 

there is where I’ll have the time to ponder over

the mysteries of the Sufis. Why do the stars

call me so? Why does the sea, why do old

houses, and old books, and saudade call me so?

The dreams of another life… almost

forgotten… breaking on the shores of my

heart, and I… I frantic, searching among the 

ruins and the driftwood for a compass to guide 

me home. Home? The place I yearn for when I 

hear someone playing A minor softly, clear as 

a bell, through the sweet, sad sounds of static 

on old radios. In a short time, this will be a 

long, long time ago…

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Prose

Sandcastles

A LITTLE girl sits in the warm sand. The wind pulls at her hair, widening her big, bright smile as she beams at the sun and the sand and the waves. She gets up and runs to the water, falling over herself in her eagerness to touch it. Laughing, she dusts herself off; nothing can dent that radiant smile.

The little girl wants to build a sandcastle. She sits near the water’s edge, patiently moulding mounds of pliant sand. Finally, she sits back, admiring her hard work. The little girl imagines how it would feel to live in a castle — a princess — mistress of a sun-kissed realm. She really, really wants to be a princess; just like those fair Barbie dolls she’s seen in those large, air-conditioned cars. But in her eager innocence the little girl doesn’t notice the waves pulling at her faded rags. She doesn’t notice until they’ve begun to devour her little castle. But by then, it’s too late.

She watches quietly as the waves tear down her castle of dreams. She wants to cry, to scream, but there’s dad in his little fishing skiff. He doesn’t like it when she cries. The little girl hopes he has some fish for dinner; she hasn’t eaten since yesterday. She looks at the castle again and, in a moment of sudden defiance, smiles as wide as she possibly can. She doesn’t need a stupid sandcastle. Her father sees her, laughs and picks her up. No one notices a little tear trickle down her little cheek.

Another wave breaks on shore, burying the remains of the shattered sandcastle.

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