Dear Reader,
I’m back—after a fashion. The West Nile Virus that I contracted in 2014 (from a mosquito in Huntington Beach) is the gift that keeps on taking; during the summer, my brain was having seizure activity due to the scarring from the virus. I spent time in and out of an acute care hospital, as well as a couple of weeks at an acute rehab hospital. I’ve been home nearly three months, here receiving physical, occupational, and speech therapy. I’m getting stronger in every way, but am not yet ready to undertake researching and writing my blogs.
But…I have a not-so-secret love: poetry. I love to read and memorize it, and I love to write it. And only poetry have I, a mainly prose writer, felt deeply compelled to write. In it, and only it, do I learn who I am or wish to be.
For some time, my daughter/editor, Molly Meyer, and my family have been encouraging me to post some of my poetry on the blog. I have been reluctant, apprehensive to spotlight such personal work. I have decided though, as I enter my ninety-first year: now is the time. I plan to periodically post my poems (accompanied by Molly’s photos), and I hope that you enjoy them.
SUNSET BEACH
Here I had to come
For whys I scarcely know,
Come back to the sea
After many inland summers,
Come back alone from a mauled middle life,
To pay respects perhaps,
Or heal myself in salt,
Come back to the brine
And the mother behind memory.
I did resist at first.
Absorbed in self and her
And sons asunder,
I ignored its roar,
Turned my eyes from the cobalt chop,
And saw instead the spoor
Of weekend drunks scattered on the sand.
Misery loves human company
And shared misanthropy.
But always at their edge
And oceans catch you lonely,
Sooner or later or in between,
On mornings when the torn fog
Muffles tidal lapping,
At dusk when the bleeding sun
Falls down the slot between island and mainland.
I address her daily and often now.
Not as friend or even admirer, really,
But as subject and supplicant,
Wanting to get better and grow smaller
With my burdens and shortening days.
Numb to my knees with wading,
I see now at noons
The shining wake Cabrillo left
And the whole mad risk gone wild
On this distant western shore.
Skirting the golden foam of evening,
I intimidate shorebirds,
Squat avocets and straw-legged phalaropes,
To hold myself in nature
And direction down the strand.
And in mornings of resurrection and the light,
I run alone on the glowing sand
Alongside dolphins who teach me
The lesson I learned and lost:
That life is quick and joy
And partly laughter.
—Larry L. Meyer
May 1980
Photo by Molly Margaret Meyer.