Beach

While the sun is still low
Only promising in its great orange eye, lined with the morning’s wet and feathery clouds,
The white, dry unblinking baking to come,
I walk and gather shells along the wet margin
Where the sea smacks the land.
The cool of the foam rolls up my wandering,
Covering my steps before I move on.
The sand gathers in hair on my lower leg and  between my toes.
I love the smooth silky feel of my skin after the washing of the sand and the salt-mineraled deep.  
It does not appear to be a pod so much as a longer parade --
The dolphin playing and feeding just past the sandbar all together
Spitting the blue-green glowing sea from their white-pink blowholes
And swallowing the fresh, cool air, to dive,
Their beautiful  half circles knitting together water and sky
Punctuated by the rare but grand leap above
That allows me to see their sleek bodies
As my breath leaps with them in surprise.
Before so much blessing and curse
A fortnight of years or more ago
I gathered the biggest, perfect ones.
I was good at this.
Entire whelks with royal purple decoration,
Moon snails with pink spirals as big as a fist,
Clam shells to cover a whole breast to then uncover
Or to fashion as plates for the family dinner on the deck
With a chilled bottle of beer and laughter.
Today, I do not see much large and whole.
There is one small silver one, but it is not for me --
So clean and complete.
Life’s glory dwells in this worm-holed brown chip striped with gray, worn ridges
That sings passion and death,
Harmonizes perseverance with holy apathy,
Yearns for the beat of my inner breast to hope what it can and abandon the rest.
There are dreams still
Broken and sharp-edged
Hard and true.
I exhale the hurt and sadness of the years
But not the honest, earned toughness of what remains.
I inhale the fresh cool air, to dive,
To knit heaven in this wounded flesh.