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