Casting for Beauty

Water washes over my toes. The sound of ocean ebb-and-flow eases tension. I stand, camera in hand, waiting for sun to set. Or I search the sand, the rocks, the waves.

He stands too.

A fisherman, waiting.

I hold up my camera as if to say... I'm fishing too, see? He moves on, becomes a silhouette against the dying sun. I watch him casting, casting. Fishing for dinner.



I am fishing too. Casting for beauty. With my lens I reign in a speckled rock.




I capture an accidental sacrifice— jellyfish rotting into amber blackness, spreads a star of beauty near what I call my lemon and peach shells.




With my digital memory I take home a garnet ball I now wish I'd put in my pocket, heavy as it was.




The world is lemon sherbet.




The world is peach sherbet too. I gobble it up with concave glass.




A red rock watches me. And I watch it. Subsumed, reincarnated, subsumed.




Here is a golden striped beauty, soft, so soft.




If I spent forever on this beach, beauty would break me. I would fish and fish and fish. Someone would find me on the far side of morning, belly up, an accidental sacrifice. Would they guess I'd simply been casting for beauty...


Long Island Rocks and Shells photos, by L.L. Barkat.