Mary Ann Mayer Notes On a Romantic Barrier Beach I This beach is a kind of code. The painters, with their bristles Are at it. Their children muck the tide line, Collecting whatever has fallen Through the sieve of the sea. A poet jumps the sea wall, Smells the flux of brine and Sweet rugosa, hears A kind of music. But it's Sunday, and too pretty. It's pretty as a picture. The narrow sand spit curving, Too seducing to the eye. Sand curves between two givens Pretty bay, strutting ocean Inclined between Adorable view and Salty syllabic thump. The painters flick their wrists, reeling in Their still-lives, while Children run freely, Dizzy between The realms, fighting Over a creature pulled from the kelp A blue-clawed limpid thing.  Startled from her easel, One mother calls, Stop fighting, it's too pretty!  II Why do I possess Shells for ears, songs half-formed? When I'm on the brink of hearing, And I always lose touch  Of what I mean. Sometimes the painters scare me. Their light and sky, their tactics Turning out so well, and true, While visions brush off me like sand. Maybe I envy them On the level with sunlight, Their square claims staked, Packing up seductions, one after another On an ordinary beach. Gulls scream a noisy feast Against the grain of light and chop. The bay giggles up the sand In fingers, softening the minerals. Answering the moon, The timbre and the subtle Waters from one side and the other Rising now, mingle, overlap the spit. In my melting landscape,   I am thirsty as sand.

"Nude With Yellow Hair" (detail) Digital painting by Anne-Marie Levine. Click for full image.

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