Living

By Eva Hitchcock

The wind blows
a soft spray
of saltwater onto my
face. The ocean sings
a quiet song. Waves crash
against old rocks
the stories of ages of life
carved and scraped
into their
orange, rusty surfaces.
The water, peacock blue
wispers ageless wisdom
into my ear telling of
when dinosours roamed
the earth, and of other
mysterious creatures who
leaped over the waves
from the water
below,
yet keeping the secret
of human life to
itself as if to brag about
its knowledge of this
missing part
of earth's
jigsaw puzzle. I barry my
foot into the sand,
wondering what
had crawled on this land
before me. Perhaps the shell
of an innocent crab, or a small
turtle who had climbed aboard
the currents
to reach another part
of our planet. And all this
life, on one, unprotected
beach.