Footprints

We turn and see our footsteps curving back.
Our every step recorded by damp sand.
This empty beach acquires a memory.

But, history is never straightforward.
See, there is the place you turned away from me.
A turbulence of sand describes it still.

And there is where I knelt in stiff damp sand,
to pick out some unusual bright stone
in lieu of any real apology.

For stones are solid, so much more than words.
They can be carried in the pocket, held
or taken out to spark the memory.

My words will need this tatty old notebook
if they are not to be lost on the wind,
or left behind like footprints in the sand.