I walked the beach at sunrise
and watched humans
chatting with their dogs
who like any child
of any age
ran headlong
toward the surf
to either freeze in fear and
retreat in due haste, or
ears flapping
(the dogs, not the humans),
to crash into the waves, then
chase the crest back up the beach
until, free of the water,
it shakes in a frenzy of charismatic ferver,
spraying whoever and whatever is in range
with remnants of the great ocean.
Then, if not distracted by a tennis ball
that’s been road hard, and hung up wet,
or another member of its furry clan
waiting to be sniffed or chased,
it will run headlong toward the surf…
…until at some point,
I have forgotten about dogs
and balls and frenzy because
my soul has been
captured by the sea,
or more precisely,
by the far horizon –
the beginning of the end
(or is it the end of the beginning?)
At this early hour, just beyond sunrise,
there is nothing to see on the horizon,
just the horizon itself,
the edge between world and sky.
Yet, I know this to be a grand illusion.
A whole ocean lies beyond that edge,
and a whole other continent
than the one I stand on.
No, two. No, three if you look southeast,
and two beyond and below that one.
Much of a World is hidden behind
that very flat line in Dawn’s haze.
But, if I turn around,
I only see my world.
So,
this morning,
on a beach just after sunrise,
I choose not to turn around…
Russell Willis emerged as a poet in 2019 with the publication of three poems in The Write Launch. Since then, he has published poetry in over thirty online and print journals and twenty print anthologies, and won the Sapphire Prize in Poetry in the 2022 Jewels in the Queen’s Crown Contest (Sweetycat Press). Russell grew up in and around Texas (USA) and was vocationally scattered as an engineer, ethicist, college/university teacher and administrator, and Internet education entrepreneur, pastor, and freelance writer throughout the Southwest and Great Plains, finally settling in Vermont with his wife, Dawn. Russell’s website is https://REWillisWrites.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/russell.willis.1217
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