Ode on Returning to a California Beach After Twelve Years
by Ephraim Scott Sommers
you can say fuck you to all the old poets
and critics and editors and teachers and deans and magazines and presses
and forget anything they’ve taught you
about what poetry’s tongue is supposed to taste like
fuck Baraka (he’d laugh at this)
a poem is not a hike
fuck Robert Lowell fuck poems about student loans fuck all the poached poetry quotes
on Instagram and fuck being a poetry professor especially too
you should get yourself soaking and salty today instead
you should stop here in your silver running shoes
for however long it takes
and stare in awe and hallelujah
at how the whole Pacific Ocean
and the whole North American continent come to an end right here
how they meet on this tiny and particular spot
on Hearst State Beach
for these sloppy smooches
with their whole wet mess of fingertips and knees and toes involved
yes let this wonder make its big fulfillment inside you
for however long it takes
to become as significant as it is
this natural cove
the slow repeating of soft waves against earth
and every curve of liquid filled
like a disco ball with the sand’s glistening lips
let it go on longer than the life of any cellphone or AI ever invented
let your urges to walk away and write your name with a stick of driftwood
die like handprints or anger or appetite erased by tidal water
do not intellectualize yourself out of this hard-won amazement
and into some far more troubling thought
who cares about sunburns and sand fleas
and in which pocket of your backpack are the pistachios and pills stashed
stop thinking of your disease
which is always the choosing of what might be coming
over the paradise that already is
the current sunflower seed chewed absentmindedly on the way to the next
or the echo of an elephant seal farting on a rock offshore
which fills you with an adrenaline to swim beyond it
fuck your ambition and fuck all the podcast philosophers
who made you believe that staying in motion
makes you a more difficult target for pain to hit
for I’m telling you to squeeze off your socks
and to sit down for however long it takes
to consider how the wind has achieved
nothing in its whirling away from suffering
except to drag its hair briefly across your eyelids
and consider how this natural inclination of yours toward moving on itself
is just another instrument
of avoidance
you cannot be invisible
so stop here and curl up the legs of your jeans
consider how every measurable shape you try to sculpt your steps into
is just a shell you pick up like an ear
send a little breeze through
and then abandon
and you can call it a poem
call it escape
call it a photograph of some sand
or some salt
call it a wave made of sickness to dive against for the rest of your life
call it a cloud in the form of the coward you are
call it all those days you wasted
and all those days you wasted writing those days you wasted down
call it a career call it a comedy
call it an empty water bottle
you and the wind sprinted through
call it no cure left to run toward
call it jawbone
call it a fear even the most well-practiced imagination can’t find a way out of
call it stone call it teeth
or a million sweet-sounding crab claws
but whatever you call it
you must stop writing here you must stop thinking now
you must stop turning away
from this most miraculous
this most vicious
this your one and only life
BIO: A singer-songwriter, poet, and essayist, Ephraim Scott Sommers is the author of two books: Someone You Love Is Still Alive (2019) and The Night We Set the Dead Kid on Fire (2017). His third book, Diabetic Gumdrops, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag in 2026. Currently, he lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina and is an Associate Professor of English at Winthrop University. For more words and music, please visit: www.ephraimscottsommers.com.