Realities:
             "Silky" or "Sulky", or Maybe More Like "Selkie"


There's a quiet little nude beach 
Near a quiet little town somewhere up along the coast.

It's sort of an open secret among the locals. 
They'll tell you about it if you ask them nicely
But the turnoff from the main road isn't marked
Because they don't want the place to get all full of tourists.  

There really isn't much there for tourists anyway:  
No surf to speak of, 
No thrill-ride theme parks, and no fancy restaurants, 
Although there is someone selling ice cream 
From a portable cooler
On warm summer weekends.  

It's just a nice place to get comfortable and relax 
And enjoy life, the universe, and everything
Among old friends and new ones. 

Some of the people you see there may seem a little strange
Until you get to know them.  
But once you do, you're almost always glad you did.  

For instance, there's that big family with the strange name 
That sounds kind of like "Silky" if I'm hearing it right,
Which I'm probably not.  

They now and then show up in the misty gray dawn 
Near the dark of the moon 
When low tides are the lowest
And high tides are the highest
And the moonless nights
Make the sea seem especially mysterious.

No one ever seems to see them arrive. 
You come upon them already there, 
Blissfully sitting around naked 
Even when most of the rest of us find it rather chilly.

They never seem to even have any clothing.
The only belongings you ever see them carrying 
Are some dark gray blankets 
They spread out on the sand 
To lie on.  

There are usually about half a dozen adults 
And half a dozen kids, 
Probably several families but all with the same name: 
"Silky" or "Sulky" or something that sounds like that.  
It's hard to tell 
Because they're not very talkative when you ask them 
Any kind of direct questions.  

They do respond to some things:  
When I stand upwind blowing bubbles
The adults smile 
While the children run around trying to pop them.  

They also respond to music.  

Along about sunset a bunch of people will arrive 
With guitars and flutes and such
And they'll build a fire 
And everybody will sit around in a circle 
Taking turns performing.  

The locals sing songs that they learned from their parents,
Or maybe their grandparents: 
Some folk songs, but also old Broadway show tunes 
Along with Beatles and other Sixties things,
Mixed in with a fair number of pieces they wrote themselves.  

The Silkies have a different heritage:
Some pieces are traditional Irish or Scottish ballads
While others sound like nothing I've ever heard before
And a few remind me of recordings of whale and dolphin noises.  

Those strange songs tell of life 
In some sort of undersea realm
That most mortal men never get to see.  

In some of the traditional ballads 
A sea person and a land person fall in love, 
With one trying to hold onto the other
After the time has come to part.  
Most of those end in tragedy.  

Happier endings come 
When one person loves another enough to let them go,
And they eventually return, 
And depart and return again, 
With the natural cycles.  

And so it is that eventually, after a night of making merry,
The dark-moon tide threatens to drown the fire
And people call it a night.  

The locals climb the trail to their cars,
While the Silky people just wrap themselves 
In their dark gray blankets
And wade out into the mysterious dark-moon water.  

That water looks awfully cold
And you would think anyone going swimming wrapped in a blanket
Would quickly drown, 
But they always seem to manage, somehow.  
Because, sooner or later, on a misty dark-moon morning,
There they are again.  



                        -- Thomas G. Digby
                        Written 2012-07-07 03:37:45
                        Edited  2012-07-10 01:20:14
                        Edited  2012-07-23 23:29:33