On this beach we collect our treasure.
Fragments and those cherished large baubles worn smooth,
tossing back the jagged new.
How beauty continues to work through the body,
the heart is filled with beauty and pain.
Sometimes I should ask forgiveness for breaking
like a shell: “Hear me, hear what I ask; I only ask
to stay sanguine a little while, we’re not here long.”
What would be the reply?
A small voice full of the joys and breaks of a child?
A faded old message in a wave-tossed container?
Silence stretched across an empty wind-blown shore?
The shudder of a soul not yet shattered or silenced.
The cry of a gull becoming lost in the distance.
Sand snakes snap at our ankles hissing our foolishness.
The glint of sun like the moon casts its reflection.
Life builds its kingdom from the pieces.
When the surf is not rough you and I will walk barefoot
on the sand and choose what we want to keep and loose.
Striving for perfection. Letting time do its careful work.
Stephen Cipot
Garden City Park & Montauk, 2006