I haven’t done a Mag challenge in a while. Although she’s been on hiatus for over a year now, I still like the challenge of seeing what things a picture can inspire. There’s also a song in this one, way back in there somewhere.
At the Beach
Though I walk in brilliant sunlight
Along the treeless shore,
The light sifts down upon me
Through a canopy of years
Dappling the rocky path
With used to be’s and once there were’s
After a long, slow climb to the promontory tip,
Where sea and sky and land connect
Where every way from here is down,
I stand a long time watching
A shadow play of light and dark
Performed upon a landscape no one else can see,
By casts of faded photographs.
The sun is sliding slowly down
Behind a curly-headed sea
And darkness gathers in the east
As silently as clouds.
And there, upon the beach below,
Where the ever-busy combers flop and fumble,
A single question washes up onto the sand:
Who will remember them when I am gone?
Soon it will be time to leave,
And night will fall.
And all the grey-winged shadows
Will come kiting out of memory
To bat like moths around a solitary light bulb
Left burning in the dark.
Poem © 2017 by The Owl Underground, all rights reserved.
The song got me to thinking about the generation decimated by AIDS, the generation gutted by World War I, those battered few who survived the Holocaust, and the elderly of every generation, and how people deal with life when the number of their friends, lovers, family members, contemporaries, who are still alive is far, far outweighed by those who’ve died.
The Owl Underground Archive II 
It’s a lovely expression of that theme. I think we ponder that more as we age, as is natural, I suppose. It was a great grief to my mother, who outlived everyone but me and her sister by years, if not decades.
There’s something about thinking about the world-minus-us that can introduce a kind of vertigo. It’s very, very strange. You’ve imaged it well.
By the way – did you get my email? It occurred to me I might have landed in spam.