A FUGUE FOR BEACH SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN

 

A FUGUE FOR BEACH SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN

(For all my Wee Ones* wherever they are or will be.)

1. Here is There

Here is where there is: Do you hear the murmur
of the seawaves laving this shore? It is her caress.

Mother titters gently with her romping children
among the sundown shadows, a flushed horizon
meeting, hugging the sea, Father’s sunburnt face
gleaming ruddy with laughter’s heat, His brows
still etched on crinkled clouds in the waning sky.

The little shadows taunt the limb-grasping tide.

Raucous, when doused at last, their screams
echo their surprised delight drowning whimper
of ebbtide waves now turned to gentle laughter.

2. His Faith

O, that this cacophony of sounds

becomes the noise of a lifetime
this old heart (from all distances)
could hearken to, leap up to  ---
Velvety notes of a joie de vivre
this place was built for, made of,
has grown by, and remembered by.

Is this not, after all, the paradise
he thought was lost in time past
now visited upon his coy dotage
when he still hankers for some joy,
a little life left, while there is time?
 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

Revised, June 18, 2014

 

*Julian Ashley +, Diana Patricia, Daniel Anthony, Matthew Francis, Taylor Lauren, Megan Sarah, Michael Albert, Sidney Alexis, Chloe Dominique, Louis Martin, and Marie Clementine. Forever infants jumping on my walls at sundown while I lie in my hammock.