Green hills twist to flat beach.
The horizon shears a heavy sky;
in hot silent air, solitary clouds
skate on hidden tracks.
A wave claws upon the beach,
clutches a grain, and many more,
and draws them in.
The ocean stretches edgelessly.
A thousand odd pointed edges
are what is left of the window pane
through which the boy fell still to a man.
The medics are unable to separate
lawn, glass and cadaver.
The hired woman cannot tidy up;
so glance at the watch.
A neat report will compensate at
one and three and five o'clock.
A grain of sand is a paltry thing
beside an ocean – a speck and victim.
But a sea-kidnapped grain is a grain freed:
among kelp beds, brine-worn forests –
weightless in an unknown habitat –
then refined in a venting forge,
and floating in a fixed expanse,
drifting toward the black bottom.
— Gabriel Fenteany, January 4, 1993 & March 28, 2014
