=Sandcastles=

Children, when they naively build
sandcastles by the beach,
do they know why they are building
or have their parents thrust them to it?

Children, are we born knowing
how to build sandcastles innately?
With a red bucket, a blue scoop,
and a green sea to cement our dreams,
what castles shall we make?

Children, let us begin with passing
sand from beach to scoop to bucket, repeat.
Now we are full of life's finest bits.
Carefully now, watch me carefully.
Here is what parents teach-
in a blink.
Flip
and breathe.
Your first Red Inverted Bucket Tower complete.
Lift
quickly and be disappointed
as your tower crumbles from within.
Repeat- but
wait expectantly.
Watch that bucket handle peeking from sand.
Lift slowly
and be disappointed again
as sand creep out from the edge,
and insurmountable scree.

Maybe daddy will teach
how wet sand sticks together,
cooperative little party curls.
Now you have it.
Your first sand tower courtesy
of daddy and the friendly sea.

Sand towers multiply like party curls.
No need for daddy, we can make
towers aplenty with the friendly sea.
until we learn that the sea
is not so friendly as waves
eat away our naked towers from beneath.

Children, we might learn
from storybooks that mommy read
to us before we pretend to sleep,
that castles have motes to keep
waves from soldiering in.
So we begin to dig a moat around
where our castle is meant to be.
Do not be too hypnotized by the water
rushing in and out, around and away,
seeping into sand and lazy sea.
No, do not be too hypnotized,
we have our castles to build.

Children, look how pretty
our sandcastles are on the beach,
Safe from betraying waves and ringed
by tamed waters from the sea.
Come, let's stake our claim
with twig and seaweed flags atop
the sandcastles of our dreams.
Those pretty seashells we bought from the sea,
now bring them out of our red buckets.
Our castles shall not be
naked like Adam and Eve.

But nobody told us of tides
and so we have learn ourselves.
When our parents begin to leave the beach,
so too the tide crawls in,
inexorably, smothering
those sandcastles we must sacrifice
to the none too friendly sea.