Jason Ridpath's poem imagines a place the speaker and another person can almost reach: a "cosmic beach" visible from the porch, past mountains that "ran off course." The setting feels half real and half dreamlike, as if the beach is somewhere on a map and somewhere in the mind at once.
The sand does most of the work. It's in "our toes," "our eyes," and "our souls," moving from physical to emotional. Each grain stands for a thought, and the lines on a hand become paths "we no longer travel on," which hints at a shared past and some distance between the two people. The mention of lines from earlier books, or ones not yet published, suggests the speaker thinks of life as writing, with echoes backward and forward.
The mood is quiet and reflective, a little wistful but gentle. The ending, "Be still," invites rest, and the beach becomes a place to "refuel and refill," a promise of renewal.