I wrote this in 1986, inspired by a girl I met at work — Becky Hanzlick:
You must have seen her
Dancing in the sand
Elton John
Through the fog of another sleepless night,
I see her beside me dancing in the sand.
Twisting, turning, leaping, and spinning,
Leaving her mark on the grains of time.
A crack of lighting pierces winter sky,
A burst of bright on a December morn.
Nature’s anger fails to disturb her, she
Glides over cold and jagged rock,
Floats over cruel and raging surf.
Foam-flecked waves crash to shore
Exploding in rage against the cliff,
Drenching her in diamond showers.
Wind whips back her blond hair
Brings a flush to her pale face.
Her lips caress a Mona Lisa,
Her eyes glint of steel, of
Shining determination.
Surf roars in my ears
Sea stings my eyes.
I shout but the wind
Swallows my voice.
She can’t hear me,
She can’t see me.
Just a shape now,
Dancing o’er sea,
Farther and
Farther
Away
From
Me.
Flashes of Color
The old man grimaced into the wind. Bundled in blankets, he sat in his rocking chair on the porch watching the sun throw flares of red, pink and orange over the ocean. Thin strands of white hair blew back against his forehead as the wind picked up force, whistling across the sea, flecking waves, spraying sand, charging inland leaving scatterings of autumn leaves in its wake.
Half an hour ago, before the wind started blowing, the yard had been perfect. Every leaf, every blade of grass was in its place. Now, rocking in his chair, the old man watched his day’s work destroyed in a moment.
Strains of Handel’s Largo came from inside the house, waves of sound cascading over piles of books and old photos–photos of the old man with important people, photos of the old man doing important things, photos of the old man thinking important thoughts. There were photos everywhere. The old man dominated all of them, looking the same in different poses–tough, cool, and ambitious.
Outside the temperature dropped quickly, down five degrees in the last twenty minutes. Blankets were a puny defense against this wind. It pierced them and knifed through his thin body, convulsing him in bouts of coughing. Recovering, he wiped the blood off his lips and sat straight in his chair, all dignity.
Occasional flashes of color caught the old man’s eye in the fading light. Some of his azaleas were in bloom, a ragged bloom, a foretelling of a magnificent spring to come, should they survive winter. The color triggered something in his mind and the old man struggled with a memory–a memory of beauty dancing in the sand. For the last time the old man smiled, as she drifted away from him, dissolving in the waves and dying with the sun.
