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!
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