BEACH SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN: A FUGUE

BEACH SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN: A FUGUE

 

(For all my Wee Ones* wherever they are or will be.)

 

1. Here is There

 

Here is where there is:

do you hear the murmur
of the seawaves laving this shore?
It is the whispered caress of a Mother
finding her little ones romping
among the sundown shadows.
Where the flushed horizon
meets the sea, a Father’s face
gleams ruddy with laughter’s heat
still etched on His crinkled brow.

The little shadows taunt the sea

to reach their limbs. Gleeful,
when doused at last, their now
surprised screams are drowned
by the whimper of ebbtide waves
that has turned to a gentle laughter.

2.  His Faith

O, that this cacophony of sounds

becomes the noise of a lifetime
this old heart (from all distances)
could hearken to, leap up to---,
velvety notes of a joie de vivre
this place was built for, made of,
has grown by, and remembered by.

Is this not, after all, the paradise
he thought was lost in time past
now visited upon his dotage
when he still hankers for some joy,
a little life left, while there is time?

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

*Julian Ashley +, Diana Patricia, Daniel Anthony, Matthew Francis, Taylor Lauren, Megan Sarah, Michael Albert, Sidney Alexis, Chloe Dominique, Louis Martin, and Marie Clementine.