Glistening with a white dream morning, hope came strolling out on the strand;

Sun-filled haze lifts with the dawning, lofted by some unseen hand.

Footsteps trail along the tidal pathways, where brief salty rivers shoreward surge;

Dancers, they leave damp depressions: syncopic answer to impulsive urge.

Dark eyes move like bright gulls in flight, straining skywards, as though leaving late,

Darting, swooping, feeding, playing, while calling out to find their mate.

Palm fronds bend before the day breeze, compliant to its nascent force,

Fingers flutter, clasp felicitous, tre bon though impromptu course.

Smaradg surge’s slow salten tongue licks at the sand left kissed with foam

Drops softly a star, quite callously stranded, fated to die too far from home.

Morning winds freshen releasing lost passion, now blushing, blood rushing close under her skin

Soft tufted dunes, wind-wakened, sun weakened, shrug a small shiver as updrafts begin

Sandpipers teeter, then run to the wave, feeding by following its thin tidal train

Knee deep, she turns, stares at the starfish, longing to have it home once again.

“There is work!” She warned her heart; so suddenly deaf to the chide in her voice

As waves washed wantonly beneath her dress, new senses postponed her hesitant choice.

“There’s not time!” She protested with whispers, as joy effervescent washed over cleft skin

“Oh,” she cried, “Why does it have to end in this?” Leaving me torn as to how to begin?

The flooding tide ebbs, the waves are departing, leaving her lost to the sun and the sky

She splashes now shoreward, now star ward; tho sightless, it senses her presence nearby.

She could free it; her fingers embrace it, if only to place it beyond the fickle tide’s threat

Or she could bake it; nostalgically make it- a relic recording her finest day yet.

Do you know her? Have you seen her? Did she show you any starry glory?

Has she known you, her secret shown you? And on wordless lips, told you her story?