My three weeks in New England are over, and while it was great to be there at some point you have to go home, to sleep in one’s own bed, to be back around your familar surroundings and things. From the moment I walked outside the Sky Harbor terminal you could tell the heat was different – after three weeks in the humidity it’s amazing how different the heat here feels. It was great to spend so much of my New England time up and around the ocean, so consider this poem I found at the Surf Poetry website an ode to my New England visit:

Low tones of cobble stones echo off the seawall behind me
Tumbling over one another as the tide recedes,
Herding them with it.
The percussion of higher tempered shells mix in and trail off with the same rhythm.
Floating just beyond the breakers several pelicans beat their wings against the water
As if still too full from breakfast to reclaim flight.
A pod of dolphins pass near the beach to take their turn at center stage.
Their chorus of well timed spouts, following one another in succession.
A pronounced breeze picks up slightly, led in with perfection by the maestro,
Breathing through the palms above whose fronds play like a wire brush
Rasped gently over a symbol.
Plovers pipe up as well and other shore birds chime in
As waves continue to strum the sandbar.

I feel the glow of sun beginning to seep through the haze
As beautiful becomes a gross understatement.

Walking up the beach, hand in hand, a retired couple approach
With polite smiles, that tender a silent “Good morning”
So as not to disrupt the show.
In tune, my eyes speak back the same.
And it is.

July is over, but there’s still plenty of summer left here.