A to Z Poetry: Nature's Washing Machine

Nature’s Washing Machine 

If you could stop the world

for a moment, a day, or a lifetime, 

would you’d sit on the shore
and contemplate the view, the moment,
the past, or the present?

A word or sentence or phrase comes to mind,

speaks to you, leads you, 

raises a question, demands an answer,

literally and figuratively.  

You sit down on the beach

and count the grains of sand. 

Impossible… maybe.  

Fragments shift across your palm,

hot and parched, some moist and cold. 

It flows through your fingers,
grains adhere to the lines and 
wrinkles of your palm.

between your fingers, under your fingernails, 

Sparkling, shiny bits of dust. 

All shapes and sizes: rough or smooth,

large or small, hard or soft.  

Just like your thoughts.  

Hard edges, soft moments.  

You can hold on or brush them away.

Countless grains, 

Particles of life.  

Is it possible to catch the thoughts 

of the person who sat here before you,

when they ran their hands scooped up the sand 

and let it drift through their fingers?   

So many grains of sand, 

so many thoughts left behind.  

Where do they all go?
You reflect and imagine   

they tumble out to sea in a wash of waves.

Cleansed and returned, 
with the flow of the tides,

full of peace, full of quiet power.