Beauties sashay across the sand
Norma Jean look-a-likes hand in hand
Times before bikinis and thongs
Transistor radios blaring songs
Sunny shoreline lush and palmy
Simpler times when thoughts were balmy
Marching bands roar oom-pa-pas
Splashing kids chased by their Mas
Black sedans line mile-wide beach
Scores float by the high tide’s reach
Shrimp boats pass to port’s return
Baby oil, iodine ensure a burn
Fishermen cast their nets and cares
Amusement rides charge nickel fares
Sand dunes sheltered by sea oats lace
My beach, my solace, my fav’rite place
Ruins as if from Matthew and Dora
Salty images float in an aura
Memories crushed as shells on the shore
Childhood fragments alive nevermore
Lucy Giardiano Cortese is a freelance writer and owner of Lucy’s Lines ‘N Lyrics in Jacksonville, Florida. Her articles are published in Jacksonville Business Journal, AARP, Guideposts, Folio Weekly, Canticle, Grandparents Day, GRAND, Family Tree and St. Augustine Catholic magazines. Now retired, Lucy has been a teacher, district administrator, school principal and executive director in a career spanning four decades. A lifelong educator, community activist, mother and grandmother, Lucy lives her personal mission statement, “Each One, Teach One.”
This poem is wonderfully nostalgic and vivid. Congratulations!
I absolutely loved this poem. Took me right to that time and place. Wonderful!
Marvelous.