When I come to the beach
and I take off my shoes
and the wind and the water
ask me to dance,
I can never refuse,
for the sound and the smell and the feel
of that last salt-tinged rush across the sand,
and the sheen, and the pattern of ripples,
push the ocean message up through my feet  –
all that vast chorus of power –
and I can’t help but fly.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 14, 2022