O love every minute of your childhood here

The air is damp and misty on your eyelids and your

,,,,,,..brown cheeks glow

Race with the wind along the shore, your hair lifted in glory

Dance with each wave like the terns, piping and darting ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,......................."Beach Child" by J. Stiles Askew

Roll up each day beneath its startling crimson dome

Taste the moonlight’s cold, clear wonder,

         ancient of every night

Pull this rolling earth, air, fire, and water

Through the open doors of your heart

And throw the key away

...................

"Flock in Flight" by Bob Alexander; and "Beach With Mother", Askew family photograph

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Here I live surrounded by sea,

the swish and wash of it so close,

a seagull’s shriek slitting the air, 

often entombed in an oyster world,

 

skies full of looming, inescapable gray......................................................................................................"Opalescent Day" by J. Stiles Askew

day after day. Then I heard

an Oregon coast man, an oyster plucker

describe his skies as beautiful, as opalescent,

 

not as a series of oppressive, depressing,

endless—did I say that already—endurances.

Yesterday, a grey day. I looked at the bursting

light hindered by clouds containing radiance

 

reflected in the bay, an open mouth of glimmer.

I thought not grey, but opalescent, iridescent,

an alabaster shell waiting to be described.

My new world lightened my day,

 

offered condolences for the years I spent

staggering in the grey, bereft...........

of this glow enraptured in a word.o

rd.

"