Sand Castle Ophelia Poem by Lee Ann Schaffer

When childish hands made me stand,
I gloried in the sun and surrounding laughter;
Never knowing that, as both would fade,
I’d look longingly out to the sea.

Now I beg the tide to come.
Come to me, not with gentle lapping and nibbling caresses,
But with beating, pounding, powerful waves.
Take some of me with each potent strike.

No slow licking at my foundations,
Sucking only smatterings of grains;
But with relentless sound slaps
Break chunks away, dissolve me.

Wear me down quickly ‘til nothing’s on the shore
Nothing lies in sun and laughter anymore;
All is beneath the weight of water
And moving steadily deeper.