Day 668

In another time, we would swim
in the sea. The children would chase
each other, laughing;  skip
over the incoming tide, build towers of sand
and see who could make theirs
the highest. Now we make cakes
from mud, pretend we can eat them.
Now the children build sand houses,
painstakingly work to make them
beautiful, complex, with doors
of driftwood, windows marked
with twigs, scraps of paper,
roofs of dried sea grass:
then throw heavy rocks to violently crush them.