Sand Dollar
We’ve waited all year
And traveled all morning
Just to arrive like this —
In the very same place
We were a year ago today.
And you are just as beautiful,
Your long skirt blowing in sand,
And we walk for miles along
The edge of the leaving tide
Picking up seashells and stone
That we’ll select more carefully
The longer we are here —
Which is no place with a name,
Except someplace in our heart.
Where that day, unlike any other,
You found excitedly a sand dollar
Washed in during the night,
Left in a tidal pool, and
Kneeling while taking it up,
Placed it home in my hand.
Doe
Standing mid river
Sunlight already
In the waves, long
Before any sound or
Movement beyond her
Own or my own —
Out of my clothes into
The water, looking up
I see her then, eyes
Meeting in the current
No sound I say, even as
She lifts her muzzle and
Rears her spotted hide
The stare lasts for years
Pacific
Lovelier —
When the
Bandana from
My pocket is
Worn around
Her neck
__________________
Bob Arnold
WHERE RIVERS MEET
