Sand granules shift in shoes
sweat stained belly, dripping hair.
Up and over and down and up
and over and dune after dune.
Some with coarse stubble grass
some ridged from recent winds,
steps sink deeper every step.
Alone with memories,
faces shift like heat shimmers
mirages in my exhausted mind.
One more ridge.
Burning feet stop cold,
pupils dilate, tear ducts long dry
begin to burn, arms lift in shock.
White ripples rise up enmasse,
cacophonous beating wings above my head
thousands swerve. Amorphous sound wave
disappears where blue meets blue.
I stumble, slip down this last sand mound
shocked by their intensity, here then gone.
Lying in cool waters, face to glaring sun
I understand now. They are all gone.
Published in response to Quickly’s Winter Doldrums: focus on a remembered moement when you seemed to enter into another sense of time.
lillian the home poet 