Beach,4 P.M. Somewhere... Poem by RIC BASTASA

as i walk along the beach
this afternoon
i give in to the child in me
picking up stones,

amazed by its colors
and shapes
i begin to make stories out
of them...stones, smaller ones,
like a creature possessed by an
enigma,

there must be an underlying
truth to its
shape, it is, as it must
be telling me about
what happens to me
after this?

is this a hurting enigma?
am i mad at my attempt to give meaning
to one without meaning?

i am interpreting a pebble
the smallness of humility the silence
of the insignificant
the wars of the sands
the struggle of the waves of the sea
chasing each other
as to who reaches the thighs of
the shore first

a mad man is reading the shores
of the sea on
a very insignificant moment of the day

the stones are writing novels
on the hot skins of the shores

people who pass me by are sparing me
of saying anything
and they refuse to look at me and give
that look
of that feeling that i must have been
one kind of
a wasted man

a child looks at me with pity
and asks, what are you doing with the pebbles?

are they speaking to you?

i am awakened by this vastness
sometimes to be found, i must experience being lost myself
in the secret labyrinths of
thought

the child is looking for play,
i do not have it.