Another Time, Another Place

Half naked and alone
I was lying on a stone
as sea waves, in gentle
rhythm of ebb and flow,
kissed at my hand
hanging and still in the tide.
My body, exposed,
received the heat
from each beat of the sun,
without complaint but hungry,
hungry for the warmth
and attention.

The sun was near
its set, the colors of dawn
and midday yielded
to an orange hue,
when I noted the approach
of two lovers hands
entwined like a promise bound
between them yet unspoken.
They came near
my refuge and, without care,
stripped each other bare
there on the edge
of surf and sand.
Dancing, they ran headlong
into the slow, gentle roll
of the sea.

What notice love serves.
It’s not a question of who deserves
the gift of where to place
the laurel wreath.
These two young and without
deceit caught the hidden
prize if only for a moment
in the tender embrace
and smiling eyes of the other.
Would you begrudge their joy
or scorn their treasure
and their youth,
as if these were detriments
or somehow found wanting?
Something true had transpired
there on the shore
in the westering sun,
something that stands forever fixed
in my mind, burned
there as by a flash of lightning’s light
on a summer’s night,
still-born and pure.

I stand now, in this moment,
sure of less than when my journey
began. Here, bound by
the point of no return
and tomorrow’s promise I remain,
to reflect, pause,
ponder on why we’re here
and why it’s worth the effort.
The answer, it seems
to me, lies somewhere between
the thought and spoken word –
barely audible yet somehow
abiding it remains where
I left it, in that space amidst
asleep and awake, before the stillness
of the night’s dream
yields to the heat
of another day.