Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Don't worry, Pookie.
There are no dinosaurs on the beach here,
no longboats crammed with Vikings,
no Roman legions trying to conquer the sea.

Wear your flip flops.
Take your paperback.
I made you coffee, because
I am as loyal as Sancho Panza, and as unobtrusive as Dulcinea.

I'm glad we came here.
Once, as a child, I went rolling down the dune--
someone took a picture, and in it there is nothing but me and white sand,
so that I seem to be falling through pure light.

Emily Dickinson is dead, though she's spoken to me since.
John Lennon is dead,
and my favorite dogs, too.
My mother is dead,
but Pookie, there's me. There's you.

No pterodactyl will come pluck us from the beach.
My brother won't come, and make it up with us.
No old lovers will rise out of the surf and say they're sorry,
but there are starfish
and a nice sunrise.

Here is your coffee. Your book. Where is my beach hat?
Let's not miss another wave.
Let's get out of here, like flirts in an old movie.
Let's be silent, let's do Pure Michigan.
Let's hold hands and make out and not act our age.

Let's BE HERE NOW.
Let's be beach bums, feeding the gulls;
forgiving how we got here,
forgetting the way back.
_______

for Susie's challenge at Real Toads. Photo at top by Douglas Salisbury.