Still hear the waves

It was a brave day under an endlessly clear sky
that extended forever from our valley
to the unfathomably distant sea.
It was a day to remember amongst days of
classical splendour and wonderment,
from an unoccupied beach and the virgin
sand crisp and crumbling under flying feet,
to the tumbling vastness of twinkling ocean
lying invitingly within reach.
We shrilled in the whip of the wind
that blew into the bay, growled with the clap
and crash of waves always in motion,
waded and splashed in an unnamed ocean,
fell in pools filled with wallowing froth,
coughed and laughed in wavelets and troughs
boldly shouting defiance ‘til stopped by cold.
And when the sand chafed beneath our trunks
and the salt sea dried to crystals of coarse rime
on our reddened skin we still ran. Do you remember
it then, do you remember how that day would
never end? Though there are years between now
and then I can still see the sand and the twinkling
sea in the nameless bay, still hear the waves.
© I.D. Carswell