Love in the Sand

The Theme Thursday prompt today is two cupped hands holding a heart-shaped handful of sand. I'm having one of those days (and one of those nights) when I want to say something, communicate, whatever, but words fail me. So I'll say something about love and sand. More skillful interpretations of the theme will be found on the Theme Thursday blog.

Love on the Shore

We wandered through the garden of the seashore
through the long brown ribbons of kelp
the seaweed strands like purple spaghetti
the seaweed fans like white bones
the stones cast like confetti on the sand.

The tide ebbed and the surf supped on the land.
The lowering sun spilled a broad silver stain
on the surface of the sea so bright our eyes
could not bear it. We walked the wide brown
pathway of hard sand, following the footsteps

of someone who had gone before us down this
deserted, rocky stretch of coast. A woman
I said, in shoes with pointed toes and stacked heels.
No, you said, a cowboy with small feet in boots
and a long, cowboy stride. They vanished round

a bend guarded, like Scylla and Charybdis,
by giant boulders carved of sand turned to stone
by the millennia. There we came upon a dead
body, a seal carcass hidden among the kelp,
with vultures dining sedately like red-faced guests

around a table. It seemed as much a part
of the haven of the shore as driftwood and
shells, travelers all from some other port and
long dead, caressed by the sea and tossed up
as treasures on the sand for visitors like us to find.

We held hands and wandered on. I carved
I love you at the edge of ebbing waves, sure
that it would last until the tide turns and
erases the garden to begin all over again.
My love for you is not a stranger to the tides.

We climbed the bluffs and stood looking out to
sea like garden angels watching over our little
bit of heaven. We joined the other vanished ones,
leaving only footprints on the sand, and proof
that I love you until the tide turns.