You said it was a short walk,
just a few minutes or more,
up and over the sand mount to reach waves.
The few turned to half hours
and the walk turned to climb
(manageable, but enduring),
but for stepping into a new world
I'd pay the moon.
Dune--Arrakis--come alive.
The Dune from halfway through,
not the first one we read about,
but the one with vegetation,
the one when they begin to regret
all the greenery.
At the time I understood mildly
("The spice must flow!")
but now the lesson is clear:
If the sands were pierced by roots,
covered with foliage,
what, then, would ease our tired feet?
sooth our sunburned souls?
dry us on our way back from the great lake?
The sand would and the sand will.
Every drop of sweat a gift,
every splash of storm an ecstasy.
Soaking up our footstepslike a foam mattress from horizon to horizon.
You didn't say it would exhilarate,
that before we dived into oblivion
our bodies would be polished bare,
grain by grain,
our hearts beat to boiling,
soon soothed by the freshwater sea.
YOU ARE READING
31
PoetryA collection of poems about family, growing up, hiking through national parks, and cats.
