They must have wondered,
Idly, what I was up to.
Head down, intent;
Quartering the pebbles
Clicking beneath my shoes.
Searching for something
Along the low, rusty chain,
Slung between flaking posts,
That marked the boundary
Between geology and time.
I had crossed it once before,
To bring you a trophy
From the Pleistocene.
That was then.
In the cradling darkness,
Safe from the pooled sodium
Yolks of the street lights,
The car rocking in the arms
Of a stiff southwesterly.
That first eager seeding,
The longed for watershed.
Urgent, breathless, my hands
Reining and releasing the wave
Tumbling across my coast.
Reining and releasing..
And the lights across the bay
A gemstrewn necklace
Over your shoulder.
But now, a lesser prize
In my hands, it was back
To the anonymity of the car,
A dingy ferry to catch, and
The long, lonely drive south.
They rest together now, at last.
His russet sandstone weight
Bellied against the smooth, flint
Blueness of her agate back.
Their snugged curves mirrored
In the piano's polished black jet.
Zen keepsakes; calm shore.
A shelving beach to guard
The sand dunes of my heart.
