Driftwood

I walk upon these shifting lands
my feet sloshing in the slurpy sand
where the waves wash away from the sea
wash over my slurping step
after step, after wave
from the sea.

Toes buried by a wave from the Gulf,
born, perhaps, of some Caribbean Island.
The coconut that rolls ashore
makes me believe that nothing
could be more true. I shake the
coconut, and hear its milk slosh.

Further down the beach from where
My walk always begins, I meander south.
There lies the tall dead tree, long,
leafless, pushed into the dunes
from a major storm, when the tide
pushed the water at my feet to be
over, over, over my head
A foolish truck driver thought
his vehicle could conquer the hurricane waves.
I warned him, and told the beach rangers when I left.

The sea bean I found, was surely from another realm of existence than my life on land.
The section of waves that washes in dozens of starfish, now dying to become a souvenier.
More black than the tar that seeps from under the sands are the medical refuse, dumped overboard in Mexican waters, sewage syringes
strike the sands and I choose my steps carefully.

The trees, now driftwood, so smoothe to touch,
from far away places, washed clean of debris
must come home with me. A craft idea will come
from the land and the seas and my pieces of driftwood.