Sand Castles

We built our house upon the sand and now we inherit the wind
for it has come and scoured the land until no soil is left
to grow anything here, what shall we tell our children
we’re waiting for the rain but you and I know
from our past that once it comes
there will be flash flooding
alas and I can see
that courtly
young
Greek
man in
my minds eye
carrying young women
in turns across the flooded
street in his arms; smiling rakishly
and debonair so full of life and happy
to be alive, I must have been five but I
see it as clearly as if it were just yesterday
I am praying for all my dead friends I loved
so dearly and wonder where their souls have
gone to reside in a better place than this one I
can only hope and soon enough we will know
our lives pass quickly, our children turn into
men and women in the twinkling of an eye
and I wonder if a whole human life span
is merely a few heart beats in the
chest of a cosmic giant beyond
the sky who fights far different
battles in far different worlds
than ours and knows us
not at all like the
nameless blood
cells running
through our
veins
that keep
us going day to day
“can Johnny come out and play?”