On the Beach at Night Alone

Inspiration 

Several times a year I have the opportunity to walk along a beach of the Atlantic or the shore of Lake Michigan at night. The waves surging from an unseen horizon and the stars bring one into the realm of timelessness, of the eternity that so transcends one’s limited life. I experienced many events over the past seven years since I set up this site, many of them happy, and a few of them really full of sadness. But the shore under the stars is a constant in one human life. They nurture mindfullness in the moment and a humble perspective of life and mortality. Walt Whitman’s poem below captures this for me.

In my fiction, and occasional reflection, I aspire to capture being on the beach at night, sometimes alone, sometimes with a kindred spirit, but always with an awe over the miracle of our lives within the universe.

July 25, 2023

On the Beach at Night Alone

As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,	

As I watch the bright stars shining, 
I think a thought of the clef 
of the universes, and of the future.	 
  
A vast similitude interlocks all,	 

All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,	 

All distances of time, all inanimate forms,	 

All souls, all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in 
different worlds,	 

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,	   

All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,	 

All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe,	 

All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,	 

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, 

And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

Science Fiction: The Girassian Debacle

A science fiction novel published as a serial; chapter one begins here: https://onthebeachatnightalone.com/home/science-fiction/?preview=true&_thumbnail_id=482

Table of Contents: The Girassian Debacle: https://onthebeachatnightalone.com/science-fiction-the-girassian-debacle/

The most recent serial updates are posted below: