Grains

                          One could hear the rhythm of the moon played recklessly by the tide

                          as it embraced its supple, ageless lover, the yielding coast.

                          Pebbles and shells partnered in a watery ballet, beyond my sight –

                          unseen and unheard but for a few wayward crabs and some insomniac gulls.

                          There was distant laughter and flames that offered no heat,

                          only illumination of faces that will forever be unknown.

                          A canvas of stars painted itself as the mist floated inland, nudged along

                          by a gathering downdraft breeze that warmed the night and buffeted the face

                          with staccato showers of the cosmic grains that had made that moment their home.

                          The fog and I drifted elsewhere - to a different beach, a different time:    

                                                   Fuzzy-tongued and squinty-eyed

                                                   you’d come to me as the lake calmed

                                                   with your sun-encrusted feet

                                                   making history in the sand.

                                                   Then, blanketed by a vesper breeze

                                                   you’d tawny hair and freckle me to life

                                                   while my eyes swallowed the image of your face

                                                   savoring your tender gift.

                                                   Later, you questioningly stared,

                                                   your belly swollen with my love,

                                                   asking me if I was willing to be a father,

                                                   knowing I could never leave.      

                          The scent of smoldering driftwood gently wafted its way into the reverie

                          when an unfamiliar sound provoked half-hearted barks from a drowsy Retriever.                                                 

                         Southern California was once again all too real, all too present.

                          The surf had become redundant, caressing its weary paramour in gentler strokes,

                          the past fervor waning as the setting moon became horizon-bound.

                          The fire-makers had departed, ashes the only remnants of their existence.

                          A yawning sky surrendered an array of lights thousands of years in the making

                          from thousands of years in the past - the ultimate in persistence - and faded into dawn.

                          Sleep tip-toed gingerly to me, picking its way between lapping waves and memories,

                          offering a dreamless rest that ended with high tide a mere foot away.

Waking along the water’s edge one could almost sense the atoms  

                          of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen yearning to flow back to their source -                        

                          four simple elements making us what we are – fate deciding the rest.

                          Color of eyes, timbre of voice, texture of hair, pigment of flesh –

                          embedded in some ancestral code predating our eventual planetary arrival.                            

                         Seconds march dutifully through our veins over eighty-six thousand times each day,

                         calmly witnessing new memories as they etch their narratives

                         on the tunneled walls of our journey to eternity. Life is terminal at best,

                         still we scurry onward, striving to get off the beach - forgetting 

                         we are just as much a part of it today as we ever have been - or ever will be.

N.T. Chambers has been an editor, educator and professional counselor. Born in Chicago, he's wandered extensively across the country, finally settling in the high desert of Arizona where he's accompanied by an elderly English bulldog named Shep.