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Looking I can see, see pain and sorrow, love and happiness
Waves come crashing in looking to crush those who come too close, and carry them away
Birds come and go playfully soaring in and out between one another, teasing each other and squawking when you get too close
Wind lifting up the sand, plucking it off the ground taking it some where new and different
People walking down the beach, talking, forgetting to look at the beauty around them, taking no time, thinking no thoughts of the beach and it’s silent grace
My hand writing these words, my thoughts wondering where then came from, why and how did these creative, beautiful words come about, I haven’t a clue
Children running around like little terrors, oh so cute but oh so trouble some, I love to watch them play, forming sand castles with surprising patience
Clouds scuttle across the sky looking for a place to deposit it’s heavy load of water, like tears running down my face they flow down out of the sky, cleansing and pure
Paintings on rocks, intricate and exquisite, but marring the beauty of nature for all, all but the artists, true artist for they will see that is truly is art, a part of nature
Except, true artists are few and hard to come by so the painting will forever mar the rocks natural beauty
But looking I can see, see my beautiful world, see pain and sorrow, love and happiness, and I am content
Commentary
It’s time for more high school poetry from yours truly...to be clear, that’s me, I’m the one who wrote this...masterpiece?! And look, another crab in this piece!
I think, what stood out to me most starkly as I typed this out was a) there are soooo many typos and strange breaks where it should be a single word, not sure what I was thinking; and b) that line about children should serve as an early proof that I was not meant to be a mother and maybe, deep down, I knew it.
Again, I am struck by the audacity of my words (was I considering myself a true artist?), the beauty of them and the depth they seem to have while also seeming so surface level and trite. I mean, I feel, now, that if I was to rework this I’d not beat the point too hard. A lot of things can be said with fewer words and have more meaning in the saying.
I also see the threads of the assignment that this was in the “I’m just going to get this done and over with” vibes in the way that I structured the poem. It’s a rambling pile of poetry lines that fit together in that they all loosely pertain to the beach and where I was sitting and where my mind went seeing those things.
There is this habit I have of writing something through once and never looking back. I think I’m a bit better about it these days. I do go back and edit, rearrange and do a fair amount of the things I thought I’d never do with writing. I had no interest in editing and it shows in this poem more than the rest, I think.
All errors and opinions aside, the poem does bring memories of the beach, which I love. I think I can almost remember the exact spot I was sitting on the beach as I wrote some of these words. The remembrance of heading down to the beach as for class and getting that “skipping class” vibe is a fond one.
There are many things I love about being an adult, finding myself for reals being chief among them but I do miss the simpleness of the days before. The days when my worst worries were seemingly about clothes, friends, and boys.
Words can contain multitudes, especially your own, and it’s hard to become too harsh towards them when they offer far more than what’s on the surface.