I.
Stamp as you walk on the sand.
It is hot, but not too hot, when hot
is the only alternative.
Stand at the water’s edge. A wave tackles
your knees, and you lean against it.
Run, lifting your feet high, one after
the other, through the push
and pull, into the midriff of a wave.
Gasp your wits together. Quickly,
under the next wave. It fumes,
and your dark head bobs in the swirl.
Swim. Roll with an ocean-going gait.
Elbows rib the air with cathedral strokes.
This is all the freedom you ever wanted.
Over your shoulder, a wave swells.
Kick hard, harder, arms windmilling.
The wave rushes you from deep-water
shadows to figurehead triumph. For a sweet moment,
you are the wave.
The wave turns bully, smacks
down hard on the shell grit of the sea bottom
and tries to drown you.
Play possum, lie doggo, let the wave
have its way. It is only sport.
The wave, after all, will boil to nothing.
II.
Narrow beans became Narrabeen became
a suburb belly up in the salt and sun.
Couch grass presses the pavement apart.
The sand learned its tricks from Houdini,
and anything that isn’t flesh, and some
that is, rusts. The beach is as resigned
as a misused wife, and even less forgiving.
The lagoon stretches indolent limbs
and casts a calculating eye on the tide.
III.
Narrabeen is the beach of my childhood,
sentiment’s favorite.
We surfed until we shone.
Our eyes stung. Our skins smelled of sun.
We lapped our way to dreams of Olympic fame
in the pool cemented to the rock of the headland.
We trudged from Long Reef to Warriewood and back,
uncomplaining explorers in training for life.
Narrabeen billows in my memory, sets sail
for innocent times. Remember Lot’s wife,
and I do, I do remember her.
Stand long enough on the headland looking out,
you see the future.
Kate Jennings was an Australian poet, essayist, memoirist, and novelist.
