Morning view from my kitchen window

Nights, Brighton pier - glittering and glamorous, carnival rides flying wild, lights and people blaring -

The morning after - a shapeless shadow:

dark hulk of trash heavy on the sun-glazed blazing gray waves;
a careless heap of sticks, the pier; empty eaten-out paper take-away cartons, its amusements.

Only a pair of white lights glare from its center, venomous, unblinking, set to scurry dirtily away.

A colorful quartet of sun-lit sailboats glide in a line to the hoizon behind -

Sunset on the sea

Today, walking east down Kings Road on my way home from Taj (one of my new favorite grocery stores; they've got my miso paste for miso soup), I saw something beautiful: two women, pulled over to the side of the road, outside of their car, facing west. I noticed only the driver first: her sunglasses pushed up onto curly hair; her long, straight nose. And she raised her arm - her jacket slipped down her arm, and her wrist and hand and fingers were long and straight as well - a beautiful gesture, like the beginning of a dance, and then a pause.

I stopped walking and turned to the west as well. And there, the sun was setting over the sea - flames of pink spiraling out from the sun; a flock of birds, massing, rotating, black pepper over the sun; and the ships, smoke-blue ghosts on the horizon.