Sifting through my fingers,
Pourning from my hands,
Shifting in the hour glass
These grains of various sands.*

From midnight til dawn,
When very young,
Perhaps before
We're even born,
The Sandman closed our eyes
To sandstorm swirls outside.

From dawn to noon
By the time-swept clock,
We learned our roles
In our sandbox.
You played Mother,
I played Father,
And all our pets
Were sons and daughters.
We learned to listen,
Argue, agree,
Learned what's needed
Before three.

From noon til dusk
We pulverized rock,
Making sand
To build our castles,
Where shoreline
Meets serrated water.
I raised the drawbridge
To go no farther;
And in the Keep,
Kept secrets,
Hidden
From the others.

From dusk to twilight,
(As is the plan),
We shift and squirm
On quicksand;
Sinking slowly
Toward midnight.

Place sand dollars
On my eyes,
At dawn
I will not rise.