Sunday Morning Walk…

Sunday Morning Walk…

leaning on the doorway
I watched the dawning of a new day...a Sunday
... early morning breeze my only company
fresh and mischievous it was too
teasing me to come out and play…

…Sunday morning walk
the smell of someone cooking bacon
mingles with traffic fumes and salt-laden air…
… a white cockatoo glides like a child’s kite
- the joggers and dog walkers
are already out…
… families playing in the park…

… the morning sun is so bright
the shadows a dark contrast…
I took the new path
so few do
and I knew
that peace would be found there…

…but I found more than I expected
a beach almond harbouring
a dozen black cockatoos
oh what a serendipitous treat!
… I crept to the shade of a nearby tree
and sat, my camera snapping away happily…

… at the top of the beach almond
a male showed off his head crest
to a female…
… until a father & son & over exuberant mutt
walked past… and the black cockatoos took flight…

… I continued on my way… feet deliberately slow paced
for me this was not some hurried race
I had no plans… no desire to return home
to crack a beer and watch football
… everything I needed was right here-
- well almost everything…
but let’s not go there;

the beach was almost desert
this time of day…
I wander along the sand
leaving a message for someone else
who might wander this way…

down the far end where so few go
I turned the rocky bend
to where my friend Bigrock sat
an eternal sentinel
watching the changing seasons
as they came and went…
… Bigrock is a focal point of my beach walks
the end where I sit
before returning to follow my footsteps home…

always sitting surrounded by water
a rock far taller than my 4 foot 11 ¾
… but today …oh today the tide was out
further than I have ever seen…
… my walks had never coincided
with the tide at its lowest ebb…

… and finally… finally I touched it!
I managed to walk right up to Bigrock
( well… I had to clamber inelegantly
with dress hiked up above my knees…
… why do I persist in wearing long dresses
and long hair that tangles in the sea breeze
on these jaunts of mine!)

…but I did it… I paddled out and placed my palm
on Bigrock’s firm cool surface…
…I sighed so deep I almost cried-
- almost stopped breathing…
… perhaps I did for a heart pounding moment…
what is it about trees and rocks
earth and mountains and moving water
that draws me so….

I was flooded by such calm
such release of energy…
… I felt lighter than the briny- sweet air
that tousled my wayward hair…
I walked away ever so slowly
filled with such an indescribable feeling
that I, poet laureate in my own soul
could not find words to describe…
Sharonlee©1/4/2012 12:58:24 PM