On China Beach

CHINA BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY BY GAIL HORVATH

ON CHINA BEACH

I look around me, portals to the past.

Stilled voices of Chinese ancestors

permeate weathered structures.

I listen to hear shrimp boat sounds, now silent.

I look to see their reflection in fragile panes of glass.

I feel the roughness of the splintered walls,

searching for stories of joy and pain.

I taste cold salty air, author of wabi-sabi beauty,

rusting metal fragments of yesterday’s technology.

Dreams gone by.

What have we remembered? What has been forgotten?

I look up, across the Bay, portals to the future.

The City, my home, rises out of the gentle fog’s caress,

towering monuments to gods of technology

piercing the veil, glistening brightly in the sun.

Crossing the threshold into the next decade,

the promise of tomorrow stands on the wisdom

of those who have gone before.

What have we learned? How will WE be remembered?

—Gail Horvath