The sand holds our faces.
Every thousand grains
forms a man, a woman, a child.

Every millionth there is your mother-
young, stunning, beauty mark
perfectly spotted on right cheek.

Every billionth adds a little weight,
gray, tears and beaches of separation.

Every trillionth might be the dirt
blown away at her funeral.  

It’s not hard to find a thousand
coffins nesting in the shoreline.
You just need to adjust your eyes
to focus on the tiny-ness below,
to see every relative particle.  

Sand is but the erosion
of the once impenetrable.

You may find your father
coasts away from your mother,
his bald-headed frown
etched into a tableaux
of a thousand grains.

The semblance of
your sister’s smile
and your brother’s jeer
not embracing each other
are also there,
shifting closer
or farther away,
based on the whims
of tide and wind.

Your history has been
etched into the grains
centuries before your birth,
yet your fate remains beyond
their sway and maybe even time.

No  one can explain
why vast deserts exist.
Why their very ash
is forever tendered
and remembered.

All we know is that
the shifting sands
will be there to always
greet and bury us.