(Inspired by Downtown Laguna Beach)
In my dreams, I soar through
cerulean-blue skies, streaked with
paintbrush strokes of cream-white clouds
that unspool like bolls of cotton.
I hear the soft rumble of ocean waves,
as light shimmers on facets of cobalt crystal water,
while waves pad against powdered bisque sands,
scattered with shell fragments like broken porcelain.
I meander across well-worn sidewalks, where
a bounty of art surrounds me, from brightly-painted
benches that burst with the colors of summer flowers,
to towering sea life sculptures that suspend time.
I let myself absorb into the chattering crowds,
dodging the shopping bags that bounce against
knees and guard store-purchased treasures,
feeling breezes that blow gauze-scarves like pennants.
Yet, when I wake from my dreams, I will be
seventeen before I first see the shore, and
four years older still before a kiss in
the saffron-glow light of an oceanside sunset
with the man later I married, my lifetime
reminders that imagining can be a first
footprint into truth.
DVWG Guest Poet Erin Schalk