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| (Image from Gleneden Beach Community Club) |
The Road To...
At the beach in a night-time
storm, we lithograph
sand with our formerly-white
shoes and travel the fossil
of Saltair Resort toward
shaking gray waters.
Wisdom pours forth from
two Socratic men—with
no less fluidity than the
deluge—spawning the surf
to surge against the rocks
in resounding appeasement.
You—defying the ebony abyss—
and I—longing to dilute into it—
simmer to wishes of Earl Grey tea,
as we a cappella that Simon and
Garfunkel theme, delighting the
brine fly pupal casings beneath us.
Of coconut incense taste your
words—spoken warm and swift
as the ivory tern slicing
through the sable rain, yet
certain like the waves coursing
toward us in the wind—
when you call me your friend.
-Paul Whiting
(a.k.a., Small All White in the Forest)
"I am no barrier to its sun; the light and I are as one!"
My Poetic Notes:
The reason that I wrote this poem can be summed up with the following statement: The original "Saltair I" and "Saltair II" Resorts used to be located in Salt Lake City, Utah on the Great Salt Lake, which is west of the Salt Lake International Airport. And, in the late 1980s, it was just "a road," with some old pilings protruding from the lake and from "the road."
And my first gay friend Greg introduced me to Saltair Beach in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the original "Saltair I" and "Saltair II" Pavilions both stood—before fire and fortune destroyed them both! And that is how I came to know and love this place "away from civilization," where I could commune with nature. [Please see "Saltair Beach-Inspired Poem (in Salt Lake City Utah)" in labels for my poems about Saltair.] You can still see the pilings from these once magnificent structures, along with the cement shell of the old power building.
And, way back in the late 1980s, Greg and I used to walk along 'the road' that lead out to the lake where the original "Saltair I" and "Saltair II" Pavilions once stood—and we would go there during storms in order to watch how the weather would interact with the Great Salt Lake!
And, after Greg and I had been spending time together for a few months, one night along "The Road To..." he told me, for the first time, that he considered me to be one of his closest friends! It really meant a lot to me, since I am such an introvert, which is why I wrote this poem.
Anyway, that particular night, during a storm, we were singing the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water," by Simon and Garfunkel, for obvious reasons! And we were also fantasizing about being back at his apartment drinking Earl Grey tea. (I still lived with my parents, since I was in college, which is where I met Greg.)
And this poem was also published on my "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer" blog (please see the hyperlink below for the blog), since I feel that the message in this poem applies to the message that I am trying to convey through "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer."
This poem was written in Salt Lake City, Utah.
-Paulee
https://paulwhitingwriting.blogspot.com
This "Small All White in the Forest" Post No. 025 was edited on September 6th, 2023.
"Poetry is using the fewest words possible in order to describe all that is possible to describe." –Paul Whiting [June 1st, 2022]
