Sanctuary

At Stillwater Cove barely seven years old,
I'd take Glad bags, which I'd cut and unfold,
And cover my newly dug hole where I planned
To create a little living world in the sand.

Wherefore, as Noah, did I add...
Creepers, critters two of each,
(Okay, maybe not so, but how often do
you find two of anything on the beach?)
Mollusks, crabs and lively bugs hermitting,
Mostly edible, incredible, outer shelled,
sidewinding crustaceans, some permitting,
Okay, some not, some today aimed elsewhere
Than my silly design to stick them where
They can't gain or feed, or birth, or be birthed
But just the same to fill the girth
Of my little living world in the sand.

Then water I'd add, and rocks to ensure
No escape, and kelp and seaweed to keep
It real; what’s real? Could I, on this beach, procure
An ocean like the great Designer's deep?
And aren't all things gone soon, we take in hand,
without help, like my little living world in the sand?

Now, grown, I care and form much prose,
And still things build to nature ensnare,
My cracks, faults where frayed character shows,
The pools losing water that I can’t repair,
And she who lures and sums me into squalor’s spray,
Is like ten thousand waves pummeling my way,
Washing smooth with a swill of green sea,
These living to their lives, their young, and me
home, to later life, built by hand
My little living world in the sand.

Wishes, dreams, false myths and secrets
I wish't they'd cured in lunar wash clean,
A million fewer would be my regrets.
For millions of better chances I'd seen,
And chanced the few from in between
Thought and faith, where, reaching high,
Ten leagues up, where air breathers vie,
I'd no longer be a submarine.

My creatures crept back into the ocean,
I turned them loose, at my own notion.
They swore back at me, which I understand
'Cause I kept them imprisoned in the sand.

Thick, course tufts of beach grass
Cut my feet as to save it I tried.
Hot sands taxed them too
While under siege of tide
My contrivance stood not fast
But was, by justice (or tidal force
of nature, which in due course
balances all foolish contstruction)
It was brought to swift destruction.

But it was fun...

Shopping under rocks for what, I don't know.
For barnacles? Maybe, for things I would eat?
No, for hermits and mussels and starfish that glow
With cadmium on near flourescent feet.
How violent, indeed, these monsters would be,
Were I only ten centimeters tall.
Seven hostages, baffled, scatter to the sea
From the rock I turned over, I watched them crawl,
Wondering off across the land,
There's already a living world in the sand.

Copywright 2004 Steve Sheppard