Balance Poem by David Taylor

We stood on the beach
and felt the sand as it trickled
through the reach of grasping hands.
Vaulted sky skimmed clouds
past a blue cloth
illumined by a golden orb.

We drew pictures in the dampness
of the granules of shell and stone,
temporally held by love.
Wavelets gently beat out time
with frothy effervescence
atop the swelling of oceans' pride.

All illusory and changing
the impermanence of our impressions
pressed against our soul
as we left our trail of footprints
meandering into distance past.

Maram grass swayed in the breeze
and laughed at our futility
as the sand trickled through their grasp.
The waves sank back into the shifting sand,
the surf receding, drawn back
to the invisible unmoving depths.

A seagull hung motionless on moving air
a moment of effortless balance; stillness.
We leant into the wind, resting,
all thoughts suspended,
as the seagull plunged downwards
to catch a hermit crab
crushing its shell into the sand.