through the dunes at sunset,
their hooves leave white crescents
in the sharp sand and crushed shells.
I collect treasure: sand dollars the size of pearls,
rock oysters, and papery orange scallops.
By the lee of a rock, a woman cradles her child.
Two girls racing along the tops of the dunes
Two girls racing along the tops of the dunes
scream with laughter, so like a gull's.
Wind snatches a song from their mouths
and pushes it downstream until it sounds
as if they're running behind themselves
& they're laughing as if time itself stood still.
In that frozen moment, the wind
consumes an eternity of ageless youth.
I inhabit the same world as theirs,
but the weight of it begins in the thighs,
that inexorable gentle tug of gravity,
the earth's burden, that downward thrust,
reminding me of my beginning
and my end.
12/30/1984
rev. slightly 11.17.15
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