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Florida Beach Vacation 2025
They buried me in pale white sand.
_They took away my phone.
The mouse was wrested from my hand
_And now I’m all alone.
Swift salty tears of Oceanus
_Comingle with my own.
Apollo’s shafts feel intravenous;
_Their fire burns full-blown.
I struggle free but still no screen
_Is bright enough to see.
Yet soon enough I feel serene
_Beside the crystal sea.
Old powers come back to my limbs,
_New thoughts of what it means
To read and feel real pages’ rims
_Contain me in their scenes.
I watch the water flow away,
_Reveal a hidden path.
I follow it for half a day
_Until I say What’s that?!
A baby octopus that changes
_Color as it moves
Now leads me up what seems a stage—
_A giant conch shell groove.
And there we see the dolphins dance
_In nimble flights of joy.
Their smiling elegance enchants—
_I am a happy boy.
These shining creatures sing to me
_In silence loud as thunder:
Atlantis, oh, the infamy
_That cast the land deep under!
A land gone sick, people perverse
_Who once had been so wise.
Technology had been their curse
_And they fell with its rise.
When I awake upon the beach,_
_The sun retreating there,
The interplanar glowing reaches
_Beyond the last day’s glare.
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Evan Mantyk teaches literature and history in New York and is Editor of the Society of Classical Poets. His most recent books of poetry are Heroes of the East and West, and a translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Ah, the poetic inspiration of Florida! You capture the enjoyment of relaxing on the beach in breezy, joyful verse. Yet you also punctuate it with the tragedy of Atlantis and the warning it serves — a shadow cutting starkly across the sunny beach.
I am struck by the initial thoughts of a boy removed from his computer or cell phone and cast on a beach that at first seems to be only a sandy vacation, then slowly rekindling the love of turning a page in a book and realizing nature’s bountiful blessings making him a “happy boy.” Then the proximate ending of Atlantis with musings about its demise in the ocean with their own technologies is an inspired insertion. Your poetry, as always, is evocative, image laden, creative, and flowing beautifully. Thank you for sharing such exquisite poetry with us
Evan, this is so descriptive and rhythmic! For the past five years, I have visited Florida’s beaches , and their beauty is difficult to put into words. You deserve this good respite from your dedicated career.
Your beginning scene took me immediately back to a time on the beach with my family when I was very young, and my dad buried me up to the shoulders in sand. Fortunately he got a photo of me smiling right before I realized I was unable to move (suddenly learning how heavy sand is) and my claustrophobic reaction kicked in!
“Apollo’s shafts feel intravenous” is a great description, an easily imagined feeling, as is your overall contrast of being freed, by these natural phenomena, from the trap of the technological world. The “interplanar glowing” of the final stanza brought to mind the contrast of beautiful glowing skies, with the tiny technological glow of a cell phone.
I was in Florida only once, as a child, when we took a family vacation to Daytona for two weeks. I’ll never forget the sense of wonder and pleasure that I had at that beach, filled with endless seashells of every variety, and the splash of a surf that was actually warm on your feet. One day, sunbathers jumped up and started pointing out to sea. They began to shout “Look! Look!” And far out one could see the the blowing spume of a sperm whale as it broke the ocean’s surface. For a child, this was all magical and enchanted.
Your poem brings it all back to me, Evan.
May I make one suggestion? In the last quatrain, if you change “the beach” to “such beaches” you get a perfect A rhyme. A final /s/ normally does not add an extra syllable, and there is no objection to rhyming /crop/ with /tops/, or /sight/ with /fights/. But it does cause trouble when your word ends with a palatal /ch/ that forces you to add an /e/ before your final /s/. Beaches and reaches sounds better, I think.
This is a delighful poem, Evan, which captures beautifully the glorious beauty of Florida’s Gulf Coast. The sand is as white and soft as sugar and the marine life, as you note, is abundant and fascinating. I enjoyed your process of detoxing from the world of electronics into the world of nature only to find yourself a character in a far more entertaining tale — one which treasures the best of sand and sea but which acknowledges a shadow. This shadow goes all the way back to an Atlantis, so like our modern world flirting with the seeds of its own destruction. But not this day. Cautionary tale aside, the giddy joy from this poem is infectious.
And what a great photograph!
Be careful sleeping on the beach, Evan! Apollo’s shafts start to feel epidermal rather than intravenous, as I discovered long ago, when I first planned my own day on a Florida beach. No mobile phones then, or screens of any sort beyond Coppertone sunscreen, but I had a book to enjoy, and waking activities to carry out, though the full day was too much, as my parents had advised.
It’s a good thing you were able to spend half your day in a Florida fantasy following that hidden path to observe shining creatures. There is much more to contemplate in the beach environs, especially when you take to classical thought. I’m impressed by the depths of this vacation work.
Still, I like it from the first thrill of recognizing the white sand so abundant in Florida. I have never gotten used to the dirty brown or gray sands of many California beaches.
Thank you all for your comments! This was fun to write… on the beach.
Lovely poem, Evan. Your vacation, our added benefit in reading about it.
A beautiful poem. The sandy beaches of Florida sound very much like the sandy beaches of Cyprus. Certainly your description has evoked happy memories for me. Sadly no dolphins though. And the photo is amazing. The clouds look like angel’s wings!
Two things I miss – the beach and days before technology.
The poem alone brought some of the delight of the beach to me today.
Gigi
Evan, your opening stanza is a stroke of creative genius I wish I had written. This poem sings of an age of gain and loss in words that will resonate with many, I am certain.