Cooks Brook Beach Revisited Again

The athletic couple were each pedaling quickly enough to be serious, but their facial expressions still indicated enjoyment.

Bicyclists were everywhere 

As we drove on our way to Cooks Brook Beach.

This beach had me standing in bittersweet sorrow this year as it has for my nearly yearly trip for five decades.

I stared out at the seemingly endless patchwork of sandbars at low tide.

I tried to explain to my wife how this is like a weird emotional cemetery for me.

I repeated the stories of four different departed friends of time spent here as a kid.

As she’s done for years,

she was polite enough to listen as if she’d never heard them.

We left and drove back down the road.

I reminded her of the young teenagers we also saw moments ago.

They were riding bikes, too, but not at all seriously. 

They were talking to each other.

I swear I could almost hear them laughing. 

I thought for a minute that I was one of them. 

I dreamt I was riding with a friend.