The children squeal in untaught naked excitement,
As the waves crash to a white spray,
And a sharp-eyed pelican plummets into the water
Emerging with a beak full of unwary herring
And farther on the heaving sea,
A lone dolphin reveals itself
In breathtaking black loops,
And birds flap and float in conference
About greasy slime, pesticides and radioactive fish,
While I lay stretched on the peppered sand
Repeatedly running the grains between my fingers,
As if through some universal hourglass,
Admiring the work of the restless sea,
And wondering about the deafening silence.
