Footsteps trailing in the sand,

ocean breaking, rhythms moving,

hypnotic beat across the heat

of day, distant figures fade away.

 

Footsteps deep and freshly made,

others faint and stopping with

the washing wave that will, yes will,

take them all, each one, to their grave.

 

Some are small and some are neat

wandering across the sticky sand that

holds them there for just a time, a

footfall fragment barely witnessed.

 

Some are large as sculptures in your face,

and show the pace, the rush to move

from here to there and back again in

a race with one end at sunset’s ceasing.

 

And now the tide will have her say across

the woven movements of life’s art that

sits in its medium and in this space between

the comings and the goings of the sea.

 

5/2/2022