A Midnight Walk On The Wood Boardwalk By The Sea... Poem by Frank James Ryan Jr...fjr

And at midnight we walked along
the serpentined path by the sea,
over thick, moistened planks
of aged, splintered wood-
imbued with the breezy salted mist
from shores anemic dunes,
ravaged by the sea-wolves-
with such destructive bite
that the wood from underneath
once smooth as sheets of cotton,
were rearing jagged wood shard
from the eye of the last nor'easter.

Yet it mattered really not
that our long moonlight walk
at times prickled our feet
like a fly-by night- tattooing
at a Greenwich Village underground;

And, then I reached for her hand,
saw her flushed, smiling face,
my sense of romance fantasized,
as we stood in the middle of the boardwalk,
and held her in my arms,
captive to her feminine air,
stoned by her warm, almond eyes,
and we suddenly became aware
that the excitement of our summer jaunt
was in fact all about ''the before''-
and the 'after' yet to come.
And we jogged-on back in stride
from where we had begun,
just an hour or so before-
we had taken to the splintered wood
for a midnight walk on the Wood Boardwalk...
by the sea.


WRITTEN ON A BENCH ON THE AVENUE BOARDWALK
OF STONE HARBOR, OCEAN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY
_______________ JULY/2014_________________
__________________FjR____________________


*Revised 08-14-16
Reposted 08-16-16