Life is a Beach

.

I sleep, and in that sleep I dream. 

A dream that stacks days of lifetimes 

Scattered like shells across  

The seemingly vast beach  

Of my existence. 

The pretty pebbles of childhood 

Riddled with veins of laughter and tears. 

A tangled weir of driftwood  

All roots and polished branches 

Drifted in from someone else's shore. 

I wonder how it came here. . . 

Lover's shells, pearlescent spirals. 

Their gleaming chambers glow 

And echo the roar and murmur  

Of the waves that break all round. 

Shorebirds dance in the sparkling foam 

Knit up of remembered laughter and 

The scattered remain of some small creatures, 

Lost and forgotten plans or unmet aspirations. 

Victims of an unfortunate shift of the tide. 

The breeze flirts with becoming a wind. 

Threatening to send my hat aloft, 

It carries a tang of salt, a sigh of memory, 

And yet a hint of promised tomorrows. 

I make my way across an arch of beach 

That fronts dunes anchored by sea grass. 

Fragile tracks that etch the sand  

Mark the paths of vanished creatures 

With better claim to this mythic space than I. 

Gulls stitch the sky, 

Raucously declaring a synthesis  

Of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 

I chance upon an unexpected pine 

Whose twisted trunk and wind-sculpted 

Shadow o'er reach all three. 

Beneath its sheltering boughs 

Silken sand invites me to recline 

So I stretch out, again to sleep, 

Perchance, once more, to dream. 

.