Offered by Tess of Magpie Tales as the subject of Mag 277
Santa Catalina
Take the morning boat
to Avalon and meet her
on Beacon Street if
you want what she has.
You will go diving for pearls
in a while along
the hot sandy shoals
all laid out on this summer's
tidal bore bearing
down on our pebbled
beach where the sun dogs pile up.
It's hard to focus
on what's what when you
nurse the wounds made by the gals,
the angry young gals
left on the rocky
shoals of the lee side of things.
There's no fresh water,
no fresh water here.
July 5, 2015 2:28 PM
No fresh water could be our ultimate curse. An appealing piece of writing.
ReplyDeletenice to read!
ReplyDeleteLovely take on the prompt
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to focus
ReplyDeleteon what's what when you
nurse the wounds made by the gals
... and vice versa! Lovely work.
My mother grew up on Catalina Island the youngest of a trio of children born to one father, a Dutch immigrant and then as oldest sister to another trio born to another father, an Australian immigrant. It was he and her mother who were employed by the Wrigley enterprises on Catalina. She left Catalina for high school, I assume the last couple years, living in a house helper situation on the mainland and getting help for college.
ReplyDeleteShe went to college after she turned down he chances for a starlet's start in Hollywood where she worked in the secretarial pool at Paramount Studios. She told me she and Anne Baxter worked in the same pool and Anne went on to a movie career while she turned down both the casting couch and the nose job and went to college in Berkeley during the war.
How she did this, she was subsidized by two sisters with money, whom she had boarded with during high school, presumably who had befriended her when they vacationed on Catalina and took her in.
Favorite line : "where the sun dogs pile up." :-)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this ~~ and your interesting comment!
ReplyDeleteThe California story, in our time...
ReplyDeleteThat's the key to the "no fresh water" line for sure.
DeleteI enjoyed the flow with this piece.
ReplyDelete