May it continue

My last stop before home

Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery

in Batesville, Mississippi

I have arrived

I am home

The statue is new

Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King

holding the words

“Beloved community”

At a campfire

the venerable nuns

with ages of practice

in Vietnam

speak about compassion

We eat toasted corn

drink tea

and sing songs

my offering

comes from our first grade mindfulness practice

breathing in

breathing out

Each of us is searching for 

and finding our

beloved communities

May we be safe and protected.

May we be surrounded by love and kindness.

May we live with ease.

Goodbye dear seashore

My family has a tradition of

saying goodbye to the beach. 

On this morning

I woke before sunrise and

went to the water’s edge

to say goodbye and

to experience

the glories of a rising sun

on the water

A flock of pelicans

found a school of fish and

put on a diving exhibition.

I was alone.

It was good.

As always, I promised to come back.

Sunrise

Contradictions?

There is a naval station

close to the national seashore

In the morning

while reveille is played

a little sand crab

scurries to avoid the heron

During evening taps

the pine trees

loaded with pine cones

stand at attention

On the dunes

grasses wave as

monarch butterflies

flitter and sip nectar

on their migration route

Rosemary tingles my nose

And overhead

the sound of the ocean

is interrupted

by the screaming

of the blue angels

as the planes fly

in formation

first two, then three, then five

At old Fort Pickens,

a relic of the civil and other wars,

the onlookers

wave American flags

Does anyone notice the contradiction?

Part of the fort returning to nature

a beautiful sunset

thunderstorm coming

the dunes

On a boardwalk
created to protect the dunes

acorns on low scrubby
gray barked trees
bent by the wind
surviving in the salt air
shiny thick oval leaves
are these oaks

grasses
with tall and short stems
sway in the wind
Yellow and white and green blossoms
stretch along the dunes
little yellow petaled ones
shaped like daisies

Smell of green and pine
and wild rosemary

breathing in
breathing out
walking meditation

morning is my favorite time at the beach

Cold beach morning
after a day
soaked in sweat
savoring the cool
water of the waves
knocked off my feet
such pleasure

my spot

my fourth beach but who's counting