SHIFTING SAND
Somewhere curled in this tangled world
(Which is not so great at all,)
There's a door on the latch and a roof of thatch
And the sea-spray peppers the wall.
There's a girl waits there in the salt-carved air
Could pick from a dozen or more,
But she hangs her heart like a work of art
On the inside latch of her door.
I wished her mine for the humour line
Of her smile and the way she'd stand
With her hair unpinned in the autumn wind
And her feet half buried in the silken sand,
Her feet half buried in sand.
But the years roll around as I have found
(Which is not so great at all)
And the sea winds roar through the broken door
And the deadening curlews call.
And they touch her sleeve as they take their leave
By turns the dozen or more.
And the strings of her heart just fall apart
On the rusting latch of the door
Until one day when I pass that way
Of the dozen not one will stand
So above the tide, for a love that died
I will write her name in the silken sand
The shifting, treacherous sand
© John Glasscock 2016
