Creative Work

Pinwheels

If only for a minute I stand silently and think about things. The yesterday of a distant thought mingles with the sights and sounds all around me now. Bubbling to the surface with each breath I take, they bombard the senses in a dramatic and sometimes fragile fashion. I step with stretched neck and again glimpse others to my right, and then to my left. The collective cacophony is annoying as I take another step in deep reflection. As I move I feel the coolness approach before the wet takes over, taking me back to those days when everything was in front and nothing behind. The whiteness of the foam is like an island for my thoughts. Collecting in pools, my thoughts gather themselves and wait, perhaps for a journey.

A breeze blows in across the bar with faint hints of fog tickling the rocks with tongues of fluff, as it stretches and pulls forward to gain ground. The breeze is cool. I let it wrap me in its arms, and pull forth the wetness that constantly invades, as I return to my foraging for scraps amongst the twisted and dying. Stone upon stone, with dribbles of broken pieces of softly polished glass lighting my path, I move on. Driftwood lies unmolested, bleaching in the sun for yet another day, perhaps years. The silence of the waves as they curl and then the sudden boom the moment they fall and hit land; crashing surf of spit and sand as rocks and shell reclaim the beach where it all began.

Turning as I look up, I can feel the warmth of the sun as it now warms this old and tired body. High up in the drafts, I watch as others gather, searching for their respite or perhaps a quick morsel to carry them on. Pinwheels form overhead as they take turns seeking the lead, swirling up within the currents, creating their own currents. Such a dizzying array of artistic expression expressed on a canvas of blue, while white clouds peek and take part in it all. If not for the clouds and old age, this day would be filled with blue, and I would be up there, high above the drafts, looking down as I climb higher. But I am here, grounded for the last time as I wait and stare ahead at the blooming fog as it rolls in sheets, blanketing everything.

Careful as I am, I walk amidst the memories lying here on this beach, and make my own as I pass one last time. Giving myself of footsteps and breath as I remember my younger days, I pass others much younger then me and maneuver as best I can, not to interfere with their energy that seems to be everywhere. The waves continue their language of splendor, as the blue sky takes in the view from above, and winks from time to time as the sunlight glints off the surf, on a day full of memory and promise. A day I have waited for my whole life. I make my own pace here on a beach that was my home and now a resting place for a tired body and full spirit. It was a good day. I have missed nothing, and yet everything.

A small boy holds a faded feather to the sky, and squints as the sun’s light pokes holes through it. There, circling amidst the fragile strands of fluff, the boy see’s others gather above and float on a ribbon of air. A pinwheel of movement through veined remnants of what was, held within this feather, my feather. On this day he see’s me doing cartwheels in the sky, amidst the clouds, on a field of blue.

© RJ Heller, April 2018 / Pinwheels

death | life | prose | RJ Heller | sea | seagulls

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