The Beach Is A Road

Peace, harmony, seaside
village shelters behind
wild dunes while
rugged, wild surf
pounds the beach sand
road to flatness.

Drive forever down the sand
to a destination never
reached through
hazy mist and rolling
cloud stirred by
a troubled sea

Next town shelters behind
the dunes
in careful order arranged
with store, garage and camping
ground.

The sign at Himitangi Beach (north of Wellington) states “The Beach Is A Road”. The beach road goes south to Foxton and north to Tangimoana. As in the previous poem, I am trying to capture the difference between the wild of the ocean and the constructed tidiness of the beach towns.

© David Earle, 2009.

feelings of home

Lonely isolates
in a southern sea,
Driving north
up the island.

Small towns
restricted acts
of kindness towards
normality.

Holding fast to a
fragile sense
of civilisation
in a wild,

Untameable land of rock and
sand and trees.
Virgin to be
broken blood
spilt on the sheet.

I live at the south end of a long land mass – too large to be a real island, far too small to be a continent. This poem expresses a sense of dissociation that I get travelling out of the city.

© David Earle, 2009