SAND CASTLES

               SAND CASTLES

Sister
Don't be bitter
We have not lost
What we had
Only what
Was not yet
So we
Could not have lost
Anything.
Building castles of sand
Imagining life inside--
An innocent obsession
Grows to a haunting compulsion
Not seeing the tide
Creep in,
Destroy our castle--
Carrying us out to sea
In the swirl & crash
Of waves.
But
Sand is fated
to build other casltes
Who can say
Whether two separate grains
Will not be molded together again.
Who can say
Whether or not
They ever part.
Surrounded by the same
Mother Sea--
flowing with the tides
You can never count tomorrow...
                         ...I care...
   Shayla Kwiatkowski, 1982