“Where Mountains Kiss the Beaches” — let’s keep it geographical.

Beach or mountains? Why choose? Why can’t I have both and eat my cake too?

Give me a coastline like Big Sur,
where the Pacific keeps throwing itself against the cliffs
as if the sea and the mountains are arguing about who gets the last word.

Give me a morning like Oʻahu,
mist hanging on the ridges,
sunlight sliding down the green slopes
while the waves warm the sand below.

Give me a place where the air smells like salt and pine at the same time,
where gulls fly above me
and the trail behind me climbs into the clouds.

Because some days I want to sit in the soft blue quiet of a beach
and let the water untangle my head.

And other days I want the mountains —
the stone, the silence, the height —
to remind me I can climb out of anything.

So why can’t I have both?
Why can’t I stand in the middle of two worlds
and let my mood pick the landscape?

I’ll take the sand and the stone.
The surf and the summit.
The calm and the storm.

And the cake?
Yeah — I’ll eat that with the view.

By Randolph A Lewis