For a while it feels like heaven
but only for a while
you roll around in love and you live in its denial
until the threads unravel
like wool left in the sun
you pick at them yourself until you pull out every one
your castle tumbles over
strewn along the sand
the string-bark drawbridge broken
the shell adorning damned
'where from here?'
you wonder,
this isn't what you planned -
a desolate heart broken
sodden on the sand.
Time passes you in silence
so still, you wonder why
then you feel a deep vibration
a far off rumbling sky
the crabs they start a-walking
(or 'a-siding' you could say)
into their crabby hollows
where they work and toil away
you can't see it from the surface but they're strengthening the sand
building deep foundations from which Kingdoms can be manned.
After a time the rumbling becomes loud, and louder still
the sea birds flap about and squawk
their cries becoming shrill
a clap of thunder hits the beach
as waves crash on the sand
water mixed with burly mess
engulfs the wretched land
glinting rain falls from the clouds
and hits the ground below
the broken castle washes forth
you watch the wreckage go.
When the storm is over and the quiet has returned
a lightness sits upon your heart
a knowledge that you've learned
the castle that you lived in here
not so long ago
was built on things that don't stand strong
when battered to-and-fro.
As crabs do
they re-emerge
under a starry sky
they've found for you a place at last
sturdy, warm and dry
a giant shell, great husk of life
one to call your own
a place for love and care amid
the shifting sands, a home.
~
