Hot Sand
I stand barefoot in hot sand,
breathing in through the soles of my feet,
breathing out through the back of my head,
gravity pulls at my obligations,
chi spirals up my leg.
I ask myself, what would it feel like to flow like heat,
to live without effort,
know nothing at all?
Before me lies the coffered sea, open to a cloudless sky,
its restless waves articulate the mystery that lies beneath…
an unbroken plane stretching from
this white sand shore to the vanishing point of perception.
What would it feel like to be that distance,
break the surface and plunge the deep,
pile atmosphere on atmosphere?
The sun falls and squashes out like a soft egg,
fulminates to a boiling sea,
wings of light – lavender and gold
melt to water, wind and fire,
a devine body reduced
to a spec…I ask myself, what would it feel like to fall forever,
a flash…
witness the end and start again,
like a well with no bottom,
no walls, no water,
just fall forever through empty space?
Meanwhile the sky elaborates
on its own unbearable beauty,
and the sea offers conciliation,
in murmured words I cannot decipher.
All I can do is ask myself,
what would it feel like to stand in hot sand,
breathing in through the soles of my feet,
breathing out through the back of my head?
~ T. L. Murphy
“My name is Tim Murphy. I am a carpenter and home builder living in Canmore Alberta. I ski in the winter and mountain bike in the summer and I write short stories and poetry. I have lived in Florida, North Carolina, New York, Germany, France, Greece, England, Nova Scotia, British Colombia and now Alberta. I have published a handful of poems in minor journals and one story in Fine Homebuilding, Tauton Press.”
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