THE BEACH REPORT : Facts of Life

I'm crouching in the sea, ready to catch, more a slipper than a wicky though it changes from ball to ball, but I'm waiting for it, left or right, head-high or wide --m'girl says you're like a dog, ready for a game, make something out of nothing. That's life, I say, sage in the waves, less of a chop than last swim (--as I write this down the old Greek gent, elegant in shades, black cap, white T, black shorts, all-over tan, flicks at the flies with lavender, rosemary?! --maybe twig-stem of gum-leaves? --his swatch -- m'girl says frankincense so immediately imagine black robed priest, the blessing-swish of his censer --golden church of sand & sea), but 'before' or 'last' wonderfully lost in the continuum, banished --continuum imposed by the elements --petty time crushed (--it's saltbush! --someone else strolls past with same soft grey article --all along the coast, every coast in the sunbathed world) --deep hush of the universe around & about the mush of the world notwithstanding distinguishing graces & blasphemies, thought of which makes one blush! --did i say that? do that? think that?

Prelude to leaving kiosque-table, the old guy says in English to his woman friend, it's impossible to read the newspaper in this wind! She's managed the gusts  throughout with her magazine. Suddenly realise he isn't Greek! --urgent need to correct first impression. I think he's speaking Hebrew interspersed with English. 'Talking' not accurate either --now & then he addresses his partner with slow, sure phrases. Audible but mostly indecipherable. A deep, low voice. Russian? Israeli? He's in his own space, not talking, sipping his coffee, occasionally flicking salt-bush fan at the summer flies. Then I see, nose in my notebook, the pair have gone. Others spot the empty table, take it over. Like anyone, anything, only temporarily there but the impression of this old guy pervades. (Description of the actual is demeaned in the Avant-garde as the so-what of commonplace. Contextualised by big blues of sea & sky, we enquire relation of cliche to archetype.) 

Old guy, younger wife or older daughter. All the news he needs is knowledge now. Visceral, corpuscular. The rest is around him, the basking seal, absorbing what observer calls the facts of life.


[Elwood, 3/6-1-16]