Montara State Beach sits just north of the town of Half Moon Bay, California along the historic Pacific Coast Highway 1. Today's post is dedicated to a friend who I learned recently was severely injured in a fall and is fighting to regain the ability to walk. I hope the spirit imbues me with something cool today. This will not be strict Haiku so if you are a purist, you might want to leave now :-)

Scratching at the surface now

trying hard to understand how

so much that goes misunderstood

and why it leads to doubt

perhaps

that doubt is only in me

and I hope it is true

Shucks is a word

that should not have left so soon

the vernacular's spinning carousel

why is such a good word

gone from playgrounds

and school halls

aww shucks, jive my corn

and whittle me a new word

damn this battery

said the man with the apple

she sighed and kept painting

all alone we were

at the end of the afternoon

on this lovely stretch

no worries

while in other parts

there were big concerns

Indian music

Mexican food

Georgian wine

punitive measures

lying liars

food fights

fiction

and fucking

The Happiest Place in the World?

A boy on a rock

Just like that came the fog

Pelicans in Formation

Temperature Plummets

Day is Dusk

The wildest flowers

cannot for a moment

grasp the wildness

of the nearby sea

combers combing

for no reason but to comb

so many images from a day so unscripted

from a life so uncontrolled

Just as it came, the fog lifted

The hard work to endure the dark night of the soul

came just before the truth

The sea birds with their feet tapping

made me know it could be done

This was just temporary

This good and bad, dark and light

stuff we are made of.

We clamor so loudly and the surf and sand

mute us accordingly and appropriately

healing is as much a realization as it is

a conscious act of the will