https://crabcreekreview.blogspot.com/2017/05/day-at-beach-by-merridawn-duckler.html?m=1

We scrambled down in early fall to the gurgling, rock strewn river
What is that screaming sound, I said?

You said, it’s you. I put my hands on my ears
like those earmuffs sis wore an entire year when she was six.

A charming story except somebody should have stopped her
from doing whatever her beautiful blond head wanted

though I guess children are resilient
says everyone who isn’t a child. I lay down sideways and saw

a ribbon swath of purple and green, colors of fielded cabbage.
This is how I would paint this scene, if I was a painter, I cried

and the sad thing about that statement is that I am a painter, albeit
only on Sundays, when the paint stores are closed.

You held me close and said shhh, shhh. If you keep shouting like that, we have to leave.
A fisherman had cast us a dirty look and that man was surely not sunbathing

with his wife. Small, dark children stood in suits banded like bowling pins.
I looked all around and tried my mantra which is to stop

comparing what I see to something I saw previously. A younger sister gazed at me
from under transparent water. What a beautiful look! I made a leaf take a thrill ride

and we sat in the sun on the banks of Bull Run, light like honey
draped lichen, trees in wind, a dog’s rigorous discourse, the sun a blanket

slung over water cool as your hand, skippers above and tiny silver fish tossing for joy.
Then you held me on the big rock, the size of a massive therapy couch.

And I heard one song and I saw one picture.
And I felt one gratitude that had no equal because it was first in the world.