Beachcombing

Each day is a ship, sailing on the horizon.
There, and then it is gone.
We search the clouds for the memory of its sails.

On the shoreline we seek among shells and stones
sifting the wreckage of storms
searching through this flotsam for meaning and value.

The tide will erases our wandering footprints
as the wind disperses those clouds
suddenly, with an imperious dismissive gesture.

Our tentative lives on the edges of this land
are fleeting and flimsy as clouds
sailing these skies towards the horizon

while we remain here, trapped on the narrow shore
between unexplored jungles
and the wide, and far deeper, unknowable sea.