Tracks in the Sand

This is a poem I wrote while in Puerto Rico in 1979. I wouldn't consider it a great poem but I've liked re-reading it now and then as it takes me back to a moment in time. Not surprisingly the moment was a melancholy one. It was the year before I married Susie, we were engaged and apart from one another, she being in Maine and I on the island.

Here is the poem and afterwards a short commentary.

Tracks in the Sand

I turn to see my footprints in the sand

as wave after wave rolls in.

Now, here I stand, observing.

And though my footsteps be almost gone,

they remain, and perchance someone will follow.

And if someone sees my kneeprints

(suspecting I had stopped to pray)

would I have to tell them

that I'd only stopped along

the way to pick up shells?

Yet, even on our knees with tiny shells

there is great glory

and a doorway out of ourselves.

Puerto Rico, 1979

The poem is uncomplicated, but makes an attempt at being something more than the simple story it tells. My biggest problem with the poem as I share it here is the word "now" in the third line. At the time I used the word "now" to give the poem a stronger present-tense sense, but often such efforts to amplify actually have the opposite effect because in this case it interferes with the more important phrase that immediately follows, "here I stand," which is intended as a direct reference to Martin Luther's statement when he confronted the Roman Catholic powers, thus sparking the Reformation.

The narrator's stand in this poem is of a different character. It is as an observer.

While observing the path he has taken, is conscious of others, first as potential followers and simultaneously as critics. At the center of this is the question which remains with many of us to this day, how much do I have to explain myself to others? And in what ways do others help or interfere with our quest for self-understanding?

In the end, we see losing oneself in something of great beauty can be very comforting.

My serial novel Uprooted will continue next Saturday as time permits.