IN MEMORIAM

I see you still in the Costa Del Mar sunset
A little girl running to the edge of the water
The waves chasing you back, the gulls landing near
The look back, as if to make sure, as if to make sense
Of the bleeding sun and the men and women and children there
Whose cries filled the summer air and baffled you

Even then, a little girl in a red bathing suit, 1968,
Running alone at Costa Del Mar, down to the water’s edge.
The years fell about you then, pale flowers of the world’s
Choosing. Your eyes grew more blue and clear, cleansed at last
Of the taunting sun under which you were never meant to be.

Most will see only an old photograph from a time not theirs.
But I will always see a little girl at the edge of the water
Whose eyes, looking back, saw what no one else could on that
Sand on that day in those years. And in looking, left.