Postcard from Waikiki
Virginia Bach Folger
In my room a window seat, a long narrow couch covered in green fabric, not the green of the sea, but the green of the leaves on the banyan tree below. A large, wide window. Sunlight enters boldly. The seat is long enough for me to lie down on my side and stretch out, and I do, I imagine I am still long and lean and young. The nubby fabric chafes at my back as if to say remember where you are, remember that you are here again, although I have never stayed in this hotel before, although I have spent just one night sleeping in this room. The sound of the ocean floats through the window, and I am here again. Here again, where the Pacific meets the edge of earth, where feet sink into sand, where the ground is not quite solid, and where the salt waters advance and regress, approach and retreat, again and again, a teasing circle dance. I watch the surfers linger beyond the shallows, a formation of linear patience and scattered wonder. They listen to the wind, taste the salt air, watch the shapes and colors of ocean movement. Their bodies choose their right time, the moment when they release to the fluid motion of water tugged by the forces of the moon and stars. That fused destiny that carries inward. I yearn for my lost wave, which is, or was, or is yet to be.
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