My Human Disguise.
I asked my youngest why the grains of sand,
After millennia in roiled water,
Grow only so small and no smaller.
(Wouldn’t gold dissolve if endlessly panned?)
“Maybe they’re too tiny,” said my daughter,
“To be abrasive anymore.” Last year,
A storm raked off ten feet of grassy dunes,
Leaving jagged walls and crumbling wounds.
The long-buried sand was the same as here
On the upper ledge, unchanged under tons’
Gravitational grinding of eons.
The waves, gale-wind-whipped, tip over and drop,
And even in the stillest air never stop.
Each grain of sand changes less than the suns.