Walking on beach this morning
I set out this morning
to walk the beach,
that most obvious of metaphors—
an endless ribbon of time,
waves repeating what they said yesterday.
But the sand, as always, had other ideas—
grabbing at my ankles,
piling small obstacles in my way
like the to-do lists of the world.
A shell caught my eye—spiral, pink,
surely containing some ancient wisdom,
but I dropped it after a few paces
because it weighed too much.
Farther on, a crab in sideways scuttle
reminded me
how most of my decisions
are not so much forward
as slightly off to the left.
A gull watched me
with the calm disdain
of a creature that knows
I will never quite figure out
what I came here to think about.
Still, I walked,
the sea scribbling revisions in the sand
as if it knew
I might steal a line or two.
