Wijk Aan Zee
Tall chimneys belching smoke
all over the dunes making
the horizon hazy. Backdrop
of beach huts, their ice-cream-
colored fronts weather-worn.
Children with legs the color
of ham shanks straight out of the scalding pot
dip nets in shallow strips of water
which divide the beach into three sections.
We’re on the sea-edge having crossed
the moving streams. This Dutch
Ocean, the North Sea
is muddy, not blue. No mirror
here reflecting sky back at us, just
vastness, flat as the beach
itself which stretches beyond sight. There is no oneness
with the elements here, just a whipping
wind, wheeling seagulls diving
and rising, their beaks piercing
the miniscule surf. No luck
for them today. For us
a slow-won calmness and a realization
that this isn’t Ireland, there are no
rock pools, no cliffs,
the sand is too fine to be real
while the beach itself feels
impersonal, inhuman almost.
We turn for the dunes strangely subdued.
A sign warns us that land mines
might remain, leftover presents
from the English during the
last World War. Menace
just below the surface. A day
at the beach where nothing is as it seems.
– ruth mark