Smugglers Cove
South Yarmouth
Cape Cod

By the morning tide;
little jewels of shell, and  gayly colored pebble   lay scattered by a gentle surf  along daybreaks  beach.
Neptunes treasure , cast fresh from the sea ,
glistens underfoot  the foaming surge , tempting summers  children
to games of  tag.

They dash and run merrily about
while old eyes scan an endless  horrizon in blue
recalling youth ;and the  ancient memory of origin.

Flags snap in the breeze and the salty air sparkles the sun;
The little ones , brown as berrys, scamper into a frenzy of play and constuction
Sand castles appear from busy pails upturned,
walls are  adorned with shell and multi colored bits of  salvage
bleached by the sun   

Little hands and feet mold towers and gardens as time and tide
race the sun  to  its  mid heaven zenith .
Then at a moment still not fully understood , all endevors cease
and so thus begins a ritual of  time   as old as the first homid ancestors  who  walked from East African savanah some 6 million years ago.

A ritual not guided by the stars or even the sun
yet it  wets the  imagination and drives our creativity to succeed to where perhaps all else has failed .
With our tools  set aside ; and work stations quiet,
the sea gently laps the walls of our dream castles allowing us
to   gather under the shade of  lifes tree and consume
what is perhaps the defining moment  that links all civilisation  in  the common focus
.............The lunch hour

Michael july 2003