Inches of unstirred summer sand are again caressed by the spring tide as I palm the white beach and let the hourglass grains fall crisp and calm from my hand-made bottleneck.
A four-year-old boy pours out the ocean, one yellow bucket every turn. Tireless he’s run that cycle since I clocked down on my hand-picked spot for the day.
While a young uncle and teenage nephew search for their lost grey frisbee amongst the career towels and partnered parasols, like two turkeys set adrift upon a sea of fortuity.
I’m a little farther up the shore lying prone on a blue linen blanket suntan lotion by now sunken into pores and I squint to make out the other side of the all-embracing beachfront
jutting from a headland. A wrinkled body, surrounded by all sorts of family, blood or no, composed on his ivory cotton sheet. Smiling as if he’d unlocked the secret for how to store your hourglass grain.
Dusk tells us all, in a swift wave, to pack up and take what we have. It's not often when everything aligns but today I peered into the pursuing grain and I can say, I'll have a glow by morning.