Tag: travel

Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Come Hither, Whispered the Sun, Seaside Creek Beach, Mendocino County, Pacific Coast Highway, California, United States of America

Follow the Sun

Come hither, whispers the sun
Heard even over the ocean surge
In the solitary peace
Of a lingering afternoon

Come hither, it whispers again

But I resist

The breeze with a whisper of its own
Admonishes me
Your place is here
On this solid earth

And the sand does feel good
Dimpled by my trail of steps
To where the ocean laps at my toes

There it is
Desire for a dream beyond my ready grasp
A tantalizing yet dangerous unknown
Stretches out beyond my ken to traverse

While I stand here
Content on my golden shore
To imagine a possibility
I may never pursue

I take off my shirt
The sun sighs, whispers again, yes, come. Come!
The next wave splashes foam onto my bare chest
Footsteps disappear beneath the ocean

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Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Crescent in the Cove, Pacific Coast Highway, Northern California, United States of America

Post Haste

I stop here, most times
On my drives north up the PCH
Take a few photos

I can’t tell you where it is
Can’t find it on google maps
No GPS on the cameras I’ve used

Don’t know the cove’s name
Or the nearby town
Or even which county

Mendocino?

And I never stay long
A few breaths in the sea air
Click click click

Stretch my legs; off I go
Northward for home
Always in more haste than I’d like

I used a new lens this time
Ultra-wide fisheye
A perception changer

There’s a trail there, in this shot
Leading down to the shore
Why have I never noticed it before?

I sit here
A thousand miles away
Hankering to scramble down that trail

Maybe on the next hasty retreat north
Maybe not, maybe I should, probably won’t
Maybe I’ll remember to take a pic with my phone

It has GPS

One of these days
I’ll take more time
I should really take more time

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Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Waves, Seaside Creek Beach, Pacific Coast Highway, Mendocino County, California, United States of America

Waves

I hasten out to the beach
Envelope in hand
Fumbling to get at its contents
I don’t even notice the surf

The wave peters out
Just before it reaches me
Its last energy spent
As bubbling foam dissipates

My muscles relax
Tension leaves my body
While the ocean recedes
Back down the beach

I turn over the paper again
Check the wording again
The test was negative

The test was negative

I’m going to live

Another wave comes
Stronger than the last
Soaking just one shoe

Which makes a delightful squish
As I stride back up to the house
Good tidings in hand

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Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Morning Fog, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, San Francisco, California, United States of America

The Fog

In the morning, the fog
Commuters fill the lanes
On their way into the city
They cannot see
But know too well

It’s there
In the haze
Diminutive towers
Shadows beneath a piercing sun

As they are shadows
Piercing the shroud
Beneath a sky of mottled blue

In the evening rush there will be no misty cover
Crystalline clear; hard-edged architecture

Though the fog lays still upon commuters

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Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Rocky Coast Wide, Oregon Coast Highway, Oregon, United States of America

Breathing the Sea ~ NaPoWriMo 2020

Sometimes, all I want is the sea

The surf
The gulls
The sand
The wind
The sky

The emptiness of a beyond
Reaching further
Than the distant horizon

But there is no such sea here

So when I want the sea
I draw a slow, very deep
Breath in

Close my eyes
And release
Slowly
The breath
And my presence
Here
Now

Release my presence
Begin to breathe deeply

I listen for the waves
And hear them

In time with my breath

I listen for the gulls
And hear them

My thoughts glide away on their wing

I scrunch my toes in the sand beneath my feet
And feel it between them

Grounded, solid as the Earth

I open my chest to the wind
And it washes over my body

Filling my lungs, my being with life

I raise myself up to the sky
And bask in the warm sunlight

It feeds the light within

I am transported there
To the shore of the sea

I release
All that is not this moment
Let it take wing
Like the gulls

Watch this flock of attachments
Fly beyond the distant horizon
Then disappear behind it

I sit here
With the sea
With the emptiness

In the emptiness
There are only the waves
Which are my breath

Continue reading Breathing the Sea ~ NaPoWriMo 2020