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D. L. Emblen, sea, in English Clear filters

RomanticD. L. Emblen

Souvenir

In an abalone shell I see opalescent sounds and shapes, sunsets, heron plumes, beach fires. I see smoke compacted into panels of pearl, gems from a hidden beach and the swelling breast-line of that beach. And when you dip it full in the surf And hold it quietly in close-cupped hands until the sand settles, I see your oval face, solemn and sweet with the mystic meeting of woman and sea.
AnxiousD. L. Emblen

Supper on the Beach

The flickering shadows of many myths still dance, like candle flames, along the inner walls of sea caves. For there, by the light of dying beachfires, where men and women of this country have come in the evening since the discoverers, the darkness booms from the crash of unseen waves against the ends of subterranean passageways. Babies cry and lovers draw together, half in fun, half in unexplainable fear. And old people poke the fire and look about, as though they were looking for lost children. The darkness booms, the darkness whistles suddenly when small tatters of wind are drawn between eroded fissures of the rock. They tell of long lost treasure hidden there, of guardian ghosts,
CheerfulD. L. Emblen

Dragon Cave

There is a steep place down below the end of Jenner Street where centuries of waves have cut a sandstone cave. Each night when lovers walk on the cliff-top, when old people rest there, when stray dogs pause and point their noses to the sunset sky, the sea rolls in across the narrow beach and fills the cave with thunder. Children call it Dragon Cave, they say the hollow booming sound and the rapid crashing sound of waves doubling back upon themselves inside are the alternate laughing and cursing of an unseen creature. They say that one long evening, with all the lovers and old people and stray dogs standing there, a shower of starfish and broken abalone shells will fly from the cavern;
ContemplativeD. L. Emblen

Foot of Grand Avenue

Our street emerges from the vast expanse of continent, somewhere east of Quincy Street, from mountain pass or flat plateau or narrow dried-up river-bed that leads to Texas and the Dakotas and Philadelphia, from rain-bright highways of the middle States, rutted Georgia roads, from shining, twin-streaked railroad tracks, from a never-never land of politics and visions, from a people too far apart to know each other ,and living too close together for tolerance. Our street has to be as wide as three normal streets with the traffic it bears, of slow-moving memories, of racing, honking ambitions that rely upon their horns rather than their brakes for safety,
ContemplativeD. L. Emblen

Morning at the Bait Barge

The sea comes in by devious paths, as an old river wandering through a marsh and delta country; reaches in with rounded tongues and narrow, level-seeking arms, fondling the shaggy pilings, gently lifting floats and the fleet of rowboats, slowly feeling the feet of hills, exploring the soft silt bay bottom foot by foot as each new tide covers the tracks of seabirds. The morning air flows down, pouring in a softly scented breath from the mouth of Mission Valley, widening to a thinner tide upon a thick green marsh-grass meadow, carrying the sounds of bird calls and dog voices and muffled city noise, like a distant humming. Here the sea and valley breath converge within an inlet full of razor clams,
ContemplativeD. L. Emblen

Bill's Pier

Bill's pier stands on wormy cedar pilings, bluntly out from the slight smooth curve of beach, a shifting web of planks,a lonely place as a raft would be lonely floating in the space between the crescent horns of a moon. Looking back at night, the cubic patterns of lighted streets spread out across the soft black mounds of the continent. It is a place where you stand open-coated and open-faced, savoring and nodding to the mystic monologue of sea. A few dim lights spray saffron splashes on old railings . . . the surf seethes violently about each worn piling. And at night like this, from the end of Bill's pier you feel the weight and towering size of that coming cloud bank, looming high and black,
AnxiousD. L. Emblen

The Foot of Chalcedony Street and the End of the World

In the Latter Year, when long thin spirals of smoky time trail upward from a desert of remnant artifacts, our beach will be a grinning, lip-less mouth for the skull of a continent. The waves will whisper in and out, hollowly, as Mojave winds flow in and out the sockets of a rabbit skull. The birds will have their beach again, will form along the lacy lines of tiny skeletons and crusted bits of seaweed that mark the circumference of each new effort of the sea, and bloated carcasses of seals may lie there stinking as long as they want.
ContemplativeD. L. Emblen

Fascination After Death Symbols

Why do I return each time to this sand coast, where figures of manta rays are hand-carved deep into the rocks and brittle lobster claws form necklaces along the beach? What is there to be sought in waves and coves and slipping cliffs, and miles of hard-packed sand as smooth as any highway? Each night upon the point I see the sun disintegrate, a slowly spreading pain of yellow sky and inflamed sea; each day, when foreheads of the rocks cast shadows full across the beach, I stare upon white boulders buried in the cliff, like skulls imbedded in a catacomb. And when I walk from shore to surf, beneath the eyes of hooded cormorants,
CheerfulD. L. Emblen

Marinorama

Fishboats troll from Sunset Cliffs to reefs beyond La Jolla Bay, leaning with the northwest wind, lurching in the shallow troughs, slewing on the southward run, with heavy seas abeam. People on the cliffs squint and shade their eyes to watch the twelve-foot jig boats take the swells. They exclaim and stare and lean forward in the wind of their own hillsides, loving the clean white bow-stroke deep across the humping backs of the waves, waving their heads in time with brown stick masts waving back and forth, wishing they themselves might be fishermen and feel the touch of sea. The fishermen wipe salt spray from their eyes, and scream profanely to the wind,
CheerfulD. L. Emblen

Old Man Peterbaugh

In all the coves, from Bird Rock to the old Scripps pier, there is no bather or surf rider or diver for abalone who laughs as much or who greets the sea with half the joy of old man Peterbaugh. He teaches boys and girls to swim, flailing long thin arms about like pelican wings; he floats spread-eagled on his back; he swims between the waves, using a shallow side-stroke; he doubles up to rest, his head and feet above the surface, and his bony hands paddling rapidly, turning him around and around, as on a spindle. And when he's done, he slowly swims ashore, rising from the clear green water of the cove— the sea running in torrents from his wrinkled hide, wavelets foaming at his knees,

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