BELMONT PIER WITH FISHERMEN Circa 1960

It was summer, an August afternoon. Far behind me lay the hot-coal sand I crossed bare-soled to the fire-banked concrete rising to the relative cool of the pier ship-timbered and mica-frosted with fish scale.

Behind me too, the turbine hum and wet-street slish of waves at the bikini-benched shore. Voices of swimmers far up-shore were heard only as the muted bird-waking sounds of morning that voices imitate when distant and sifted by irresolute air. Nearer and more present were the voices of fishermen: raucous deep-throated men, raven voiced women and screeching eaglet children.

But even these were filtered through the sea-soft air to be lost, if you wished it so, along with the smells of bait—live in rank water, the dying caught fish, the sweats, stale coffee, warm beer and deep fat fry of the snack bar squatting mid-pier. Lost to the soft still song of a sea light day, lost in the taste of salt air—clean, untamed, long traveled—sweet and sour with the tang of yin and yang.

At the end of the long pier, I leaned outward—like a ship’s figurehead—to catch the sweep of sky as my eyes witnessed grays melting into blue. The still of the horizon wrapped separateness around me. Within the hush of this sea spun cocoon, I knew only the creak of the seagull’s cry echoed by the wharf beneath my feet, the caress of sea-kissed air, and the lapping lullaby of quiet tide.

The westward sun diamonded in a thousand liquid mirrors—a laserium impressionist painting—floating, tilting, shimmering…

#Summer #BeachMemories #BeachandImpressionism