Hello! This poem came gently but pretty much as a whole, as I looked at the words after copying them down. I usually write poems down with line breaks from the start. Maybe my haibun-ing has a hold of my brain. I wrote this as a paragraph, typed it as a paragraph, but as I looked to see if I was going to write a haibun, the line breaks appeared. With a little tweaking and jockeying:
Seascape
She liked to wander through the town,
down this alley and that lane, always
bearing towards the sea — whose beating
sound overlay everything — until she came
to the town’s edge and saw it stretch
before her, pewter under the clouds,
greener in the shallows before the water
ran up the beach, intractable. She liked
to follow the sandpipers along the shoreline,
with their skittering steps, watch the mewling
gulls as they balanced their wings
to accommodate the wind currents. She
sat for hours on the sand, watching
and listening, content to squander time.
You can read more over at The Sunday Whirl, so visit. Thank you, Marianne for the list and Brenda for the wordle!
kjpgarcia
29/04/2012 at 9:07 am
‘Content to squander time’ – what a wonderful feeling to have. Every now and again we all just need to let time pass while doing ‘nothing.’
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 9:09 am
Hello, kjp! More and more squandering time becomes important. I used to teach my overly serious students to frivol for five minutes a day.
annell
29/04/2012 at 9:23 am
It has to be lovely!
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 9:55 am
You always make me smile, annell!
Marianne
29/04/2012 at 9:35 am
You’ve done a splendid, seamless job of incorporating the wordle words, Margo! I just selected the words randomly. You’ve made them shine like the stars they are! “Content to squander time” is wonderful!
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 9:56 am
Thank you, Marianne. If that is random, I want more. They worked so well together that some of the credit for seamlessness has to go to you.
nan
29/04/2012 at 9:36 am
Lovely sea poem. I like the ending and find myself re-reading it as if watching waves.
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 9:57 am
Nan, thank you. Exactly what I was seeing when I wrote the end.
Laurie Kolp
29/04/2012 at 9:41 am
I’d like to do that, too. I love the beach… the sandpipers, yeah.
http://lkharris-kolp.blogspot.com/2012/04/as-i-watched-you-go.html
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 9:58 am
Me too, Laurie. My dream home involves being within reach of a deserted beach.
whimsygizmo
29/04/2012 at 10:39 am
Oh, YES, this:
“whose beating
sound overlay everything”
LOVE. I need my beach house. Now.
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 11:22 am
You have a beach house, you have a guest. Some of my greatest memories are the summers [when on home leave, every third year] spent at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. My grandmother would rent a beach house and several of her friends owned beach houses. We spent the summer going from one beach house to another punctuated by the beach and walks along the boardwalk. Even now, my uncle has a house there and I love to visit.
vivinfrance
29/04/2012 at 10:49 am
Margo, I absolutely love this one. The Wordle words are used with subtlety and the tranquility of the whole piece is calming. (I am frazzled because of the gale and my complicated sewing)
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 11:24 am
Thank you, ViV. Even when it storms, the sea makes me feel this way. You might leave the complicated sewing ’til the gale blows through. I suspect you have other bits lying around. Stop frazzling yourself, woman.
brenda w
29/04/2012 at 11:10 am
pewter under the clouds
this is lovely, Margo…your words ebb and flow like the sea. I’m glad you went with the line breaks. Brilliant.
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 11:24 am
I am too, Brenda. Thank you.
wordsandthoughtspjs
29/04/2012 at 11:33 am
This quite beautiful, Margo. I too, like the calming sensation this brings about. I am still stuggling with the words myself. I wrote two lines last night and went to bed. Possibly some kind of light will shine on me today. Next April I will think twice about napowrimo. This year knocked me on my butt. 🙂
Pamela
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 11:42 am
Thank you, Pamela. I hope your brain responded to the words today. I tried napowrimo for three days last year and knew it wasn’t for me. If you think about it, you already write a poem a day [pretty much] answering the prompts you follow. Maybe next year, keep doing your normal routine and on days the writing brain is absent, read poems, or revise a poem.
I hope your weekend is restful rather than exhausted. One more day, one more have to poem 🙂
wordsandthoughtspjs
29/04/2012 at 12:22 pm
I have a four day weekend, so I hoping for some extra rest. I am however trying out a couple of new cleaning ladies. The one who came yesterday was God awful. I had to send her back into the bathrooms twice and she still didn’t get it right. Then after she was gone I noticed a necklace my daughter gave me was missing. My fault for not watching her round my jewellery, I suppose. I was doing my own housekeeping this past year until this new job. Now I have hardly time to cook anymore. My husband eats a lot of salads lately. 🙂
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 12:52 pm
Salads are good. He’ll be so healthy.
I hope you find someone you can hang onto. Once we both retire, I plan to have someone come in once every third week. That may sound strange, but I am a terrible housekeeper and would like to know the house has been well-cleaned on a fairly regular basis. The apartment we live in now is small enough for me to more or less keep it in shape.
Hide the jewelry.
Misky
29/04/2012 at 11:40 am
That is splendid, Margo. It has real movement in the rythm…. Could make a girl nod off to sleep. 🙂
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 11:42 am
Go right ahead, Misky. Nod away 🙂
Daydreamertoo
29/04/2012 at 12:03 pm
Oh, I can’t think of a better way of squandering time than to sit on a beach and watch the birds glide and listen to the sea. Beautiful imagery!
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 12:53 pm
My favourite way of all to squander time, ddt. And if I can have a mug of coffee with that… bliss.
markwindham
29/04/2012 at 12:54 pm
🙂
Our wanderers took opposite paths, yours to the sea, mine away. Love ‘skittering’, i seem to use it every time I describe a sea bird on the sand.
Also like the wandering, time wasting feel established at the beginning and confirmed in the last line.
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 12:59 pm
Skittering has a great sound and visual to it, doesn’t it!
I’ll be damned. You are right. And wander rhymes with squander. Keep re-mark-ing, please. 🙂
tmhHoover
29/04/2012 at 9:37 pm
I love how Mark seems to be able to tie our writing together with his comments … he did the same with my piece. Thanks Mark.
1sojournal
29/04/2012 at 1:16 pm
Although I seem more busy now, squandering time is an essential part of my everyday. And I hug myself for exploiting it. Love the poem, it is relaxing as well as comforting.
Elizabeth
http://soulsmusic.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/the-dream/
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 1:25 pm
Thank you, Elizabeth, and, yes, as I skirt the depression pit, I find that the deliberate squandering of time is vital. I do have to talk to myself sternly sometimes.
Mary
29/04/2012 at 1:33 pm
Well,Margo, I am late for the party here; so I have little to add. People have mentioned the last line about squandering time. No better way, I think, than to squander it doing something one loves. I did like the idea of the town’s edge between pewter under the clouds too. Very imaginative. I like the line breaks as well. Good choice of form.
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 2:52 pm
Just glad to see you, Mary. Thank you for your comments, as always, much appreciated.
Kelly E.
29/04/2012 at 3:42 pm
Oh, this feels like a painting to me — such vivid imagery. You’ve captured the joy in solitude, the peacefulness of just being that only the sea can bring. Excellent work, Margo.
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 5:31 pm
Thank you so much, Kelly.
julespaige
29/04/2012 at 3:44 pm
You have lifted up my day that was ebbing to the dark side…that is where my wordle went:
http://julesgemsandstuff.blogspot.com/2012/04/lackluster-lackey-sunday-whirl-wordle.html
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 5:31 pm
Jules, anything I can do to keep you away from the dark side, I am happy to do. I shall check your dark wordle.
Mr. Walker
29/04/2012 at 5:21 pm
Margo, lovely. Reminds me of when I lived in the avenues in San Francisco and could walk to Ocean Beach in a matter of minutes. I “squandered” time like that many a day.
Richard
margo roby
29/04/2012 at 5:33 pm
Richard, I know the area well. San Francisco has long been my second home, although I never lived there. I have spent almost 60 years visiting and staying for a month at a time with family. Love the area of which you speak.
tmhHoover
29/04/2012 at 9:39 pm
You seemed to awaken the beach lover in all of us. As has been mentioned- you caught the calm ocean waves brings to our souls.
margo roby
30/04/2012 at 7:36 am
I noticed that, Teri. I was startled at the fervour! If the ocean does that for all of us, I’ll have to try and bring it more often.
Hannah Gosselin
29/04/2012 at 11:48 pm
Great wrangling, Margo, so nice to read you tonight!! Thank you!
margo roby
30/04/2012 at 7:37 am
Thank you, Hannah. I do love the imagine I get when you use wrangling, great lolloping words bucking around and me with a lasso. That about describes the process!
Bonnee
30/04/2012 at 6:46 am
Wow, that was quite brilliant! 😀 Great work.
margo roby
30/04/2012 at 7:37 am
Why thank you, Bonnee 🙂
b_y
30/04/2012 at 9:27 pm
Fine, super fine, ultrafine.
And I want to go, too.
margo roby
01/05/2012 at 7:41 am
You may certainly go too, Barb!
b_y
01/05/2012 at 8:28 am
I do have a terrible yearning for walking barefoot in sand. Be nice to spend some time with the water. Been quite a while since I’ve done more than get splashed and said good-bye.
margo roby
01/05/2012 at 8:31 am
Yearning is a good word for it, barb. I know nothing that has the pull for me that the sea and the shore does.
Hannah Gosselin
30/04/2012 at 11:52 pm
“She liked
to follow the sandpipers along the shoreline,
with their skittering steps, watch the mewling
gulls as they balanced their wings
to accommodate the wind currents.”
I SO love this portion, Margo! Great use of the words throughout! I just gave them a “whirl,” myself! 🙂 Happy last day of NPM!
margo roby
01/05/2012 at 7:42 am
Hannah, I grow fonder of the poem as you all comment 🙂
Now all of you can rest, right?
Hannah Gosselin
01/05/2012 at 9:31 am
Rest? What’s that?! Lol! I know what you mean by the commenting…sometimes I end up seeing more in even my own words as people see different aspects of it. Smiles to you!
cloudfactor5
01/05/2012 at 11:47 am
There’s something about the sea that calls to all ! I like how you included sandpipers for I don’t recall ever being at the seashore without seeing them !
margo roby
01/05/2012 at 1:42 pm
I agree, cloudfactor5, especially the Atlantic coastline, here in the US.
purplepeninportland
01/05/2012 at 2:34 pm
Margo, What a beautiful poem. As a beach person, I really relate to the call of the sea.
margo roby
01/05/2012 at 3:21 pm
Thank you so much, Sara.
irene
02/05/2012 at 5:55 am
Like the idea of squandering time in your seascape poem. Hey Margo, I’ll be “going dark”, to borrow your expression.
margo roby
02/05/2012 at 7:23 am
Enjoy it, Irene. Squander some time while you are dark 🙂