A quiet shoreline appears in close-up: shallow pools in the sand hold the sky, clouds, and houses, making the world look fragile and doubled. The speaker stands inside this calm scene, watching wind disturb the reflections. Then he suddenly dashes through the pools, breaking their smooth surface into bubbles and ripples. Looking back, he sees his boot-tracks slowly filling and blurring in the dark, wind-wrinkled sand. The feeling is both playful and wistful—there is a childlike urge to shatter something perfect, followed by a quieter awareness of how quickly disturbances fade and disappear. The mood is solitary, observant, and tinged with melancholy, as if the speaker is not just running across wet sand but noticing how change erases even small marks we leave behind.
The Sands — Summary
Shallow pools of water Are drinking up the sky; Chasms of cool blue-white In the brown of the sands. The clouds are in them, The houses on the shore, The winds rumple the even Glimmer of the reflection.
I dash across those shallow pools: Starring their gauzy surface: A plopping rush of bubbles: I turn and watch my boot-tracks Oozing upwards slowly in the dark wind-wrinkled sand.