sand castles

the water is an oval mirror placating the ego of a new blue sky. the trees are still cloaked in night. along the shore line i make out small, dilapidated lumps, washed out and sagging under the new day. these were once sophisticated structures, artistic attemps at architecture, whimsical worlds that defied logic, in short, these were dreams made manifest in nature's most mutable of soils, sand. each day i watched them, young builders dressed in loud clothing, carelessly careening their eager little hands into the forgiving material, minature muscles racing along in jerky motions trying to contain their excitement at the power of invention. one, blonde haired and blue-eyed, kept planing a thick wall hoping to give it some dignity instead of the grotesque obesity it was slumping into. another scooped up the saturated sand along the water's edge and thet it drizzle from her little fists small as plums. "there will be mountains" she seemed to say, "and i will pull them from the sea!" and in these mountains she began to build a life. many lives were laid into these structures, their neon plastic bodies jutting out of their transitory homes. stacy has five cars, twenty dogs and a pool deep enough to drown in. cara has several homes and a large road that meanders down to the sea. mark and melanie live in a big dome with a huge trench to save them from the dangerous surf. and everyone is quite happy, after all who wouldn't be with all this ocean front property. but when the sun ducks down behind the hill this world grows dark and the architects go back to their real houses, leaving behind their creations.

i think to myself, where does this urge come from? this urge to build a structure and delineate a place as if it were ours? why at such a young age? who taught us the power of ownership? who told us we could build little homes and put little people inside them and move them here and there with nothing but a playful smile? we build little gods on these beaches, architects of their own universes, masters of their own plays and like gods tend to do, they disappear, go away and the world grows dark again.

what then of the sand castles? i stand here in the new sun and watch the washed out and sagging sand castles come into view like too many forgotten villages and too many forgotten cities. i move as a shadow, going to each one and kicking it down. and sometimes i stand a moment above one and smile, say a half-hearted apology and return it to the earth with my heel. the daylight is quickly approaching and i must prepare this beach for the next set of builders. i make this place look new, i make it look like theirs.