Prints in Time.

Warm, soft grains tickle the toes

An infant learning to stand and toddle

Tiny footprint whipped away in an instant

By the light breeze blowing from the sea.

Eradication of a memory from an infant mind.

Building castles in dampened sand

Small feet stamping and pressing

Roadways and bridges for a fairy-tale castle

Toe-prints creating textural patterns

Cobbled whorls of impermanence.

Teenage toes buried in warm sand

Hiding from seeking, tickling fingers,

and the roasting rays of a hot

holiday summer sun, footprint eroded

by scuffs and volley-ball sliding tackles.

A warm bed of fine powdered shells

Footprints leading to a bowery dune

more than a footprint – a body print

of an impassioned, transient

rite of passage sexual encounter.

Three prints, not two,

Deep in hard-packed, firm sand

a limping adult with a third leg

the crutch, chosen aid to transitory

mobility walking, tumbling, stumbling.

Two old feet in the warm sand

At the close of an Autumn day.

Memories of a lifetime

percolating beneath the surface

safe beneath drifting sands of time.

Biography:

Janet Stoyel is a Practicing Wordsmith. After a long career in Textiles, Janet now focuses her attention upon Creative Writing. Janet writes for the pure appreciation and joy found in language: in letters: words, sentences, she chooses, organises, weaves, and constructs, her written vocabulary into her distinctive freeform language.

Janet lives in a small Somerset Village in the UK. It is a sleepy, rural area of Wetlands noted for the growing of Willow and the making of baskets – a great place to write!