Sun, Sand, and Shade

The hard stuff to live with is the soft
Stuff you’ve got too much of, that slips through
Your splayed bare toes and feels good and warm

Right up to the point where it’s too hot,
And you’re in pain. In parts of the globe,
The soft means snow, in some parts the sea

Or rain, but here, half the year, soft turns
Sun on baked sand, sand blown off of stone
Packed down hard from what were sand dunes once,

Swirled and shaped by winds like these that now
Scour them to grit and spray once more. Sand
Lies in all its forms here—stone, blown, dust—

So there comes that time of spring that lasts
Through most of the fall, when love of sun
And light seeks out some frayed bit of shade

By a wall, at the foot of a pine,
What have you. A porch at dawn’s the best,
Next best just when the sun’s sunk back west.

You sit and sniff the dry breeze, the bright,
Calm bits of the hours not caught in full
Sun or fierce winds, and you think dried thoughts

In which the life of the flesh and soul
Are stitched by that breeze to fit this place
To sheet-sized word-sails, sun, sand, and shade.