EVEN WHEN I WANT TO DANCE

 

I go to the beach sometimes alone now,

My black car making white swirls

In the sandy road.

I go to the house where I used to come in the summers

With my family,

All of us young and happy and believing.

I like to lie above the dunes and watch

The foamy waves that never think to stop.

And then I feel the winds running through me

And let them fill me clear to the bone with the good parts

Of who I used to be.

 

When the water is white I don't hear the birds,

And I picture them tucked into the reeds

Praying the wind will die down before dinnertime.

With each gust the short blades of new beach grass

Wave in a madness,

Like only their dancing

Can fulfill some critical life plan laid out long ago

By someone they can't quite remember.

 

I feel that way too now and again,

But more often than not I catch myself standing still.

Even when I want to dance.

- Pamela Cocke

THE LITTLE BLUE BOAT                                  

When I was a girl,

my father gave me a little

blue boat.                                                             

 

It was deep and fully broad enough

to hold two laughing girls

with eight knees and elbows altogether.

 

There was a rope for towing

out on courses charted by our dreams

and pointing fingers,

or grabbing back

if any current dared to lead his girls astray.

 

We sat and bobbled,

my sister and I,

in pink puckered suits and salty hair,

in the bottom of the little boat,

our toes and fingers grazing on the waves,

alert for treasure

or a moment's cooling.

 

And my father pulled the boat

from wave to wave,

ocean to ocean,

sea to sea,

and dream to dream,

urging the bow in every direction on the sea and sky

while we squealed and giggled and pointed out

our pleasures.

 

And when he had shown us both the

way

to every corner

of the round and endless earth,

 

he dropped the line and waded in

to shore,

 

leaving us each

a

paddle.

- Pamela Cocke