I.

Ash paintings

  of sand

 traced

  in the hush

 between

         what was

     and what will

  scatter

with the breeze.

Ruins

 of kingdoms

  to come

 still crumbling

like the castles we built

   on wet wind shores,

  laughing,

    even as the tide

came in.

I remember

 a stone caught my finger

  at Merlin’s Cave,

 salt and blood.

She knelt beside me,

 asked only,

  “Where does it hurt?”

Then wrapped the wound

 with her scarf —

not to stop the pain,

 but to stay close to it.

And as we sat,

 she whispered

  the story of Merlin

 as a boy—

alone,

watching the tide

carve his cave

  from stone.

The sea kept speaking,

 and we sat still

  to listen.

In the wound,

  my story began

again.

II.

How is it

 that even in sorrow

 they kneel —

  those monks

  in amber robes —

 not to shape,

 but to scatter

  color

 as form,

  knowing

 the wind

          will

carry

what was

offered

         to be

             lost.

Each grain placed

 with care —

  not to resist,

 but to honor

Not to hold,

 but to let go.

Not to draw a line,

 but to watch it blur.

The promise

 of forever

  dissolving

And still —

they shape the lotus,

 the flame,

 the turning

  wheel.

And when all is done,

 they bow,

as the wind

 moves

  through.

III.

I did not know it then,

 but they

  make the same offering —

 child,

mother,

 and monk.

Each grain whispered

  as words

    inside

 the sea cave.

They, too,

 speak the old stories

  with their hands —

  knowing all

  will scatter.

And still —

they color the world,

 knowing

  it will not hold.

Knowing

 that to weave

  form

 from wound,

  silence

 from breath —

 to shape

a castle

 in sand

 is not to defy

the tide

 but to belong

  to it,

to belong

      to the wind

 as it softens the stone,

to the sea

  as it whispers,

        and unsings

to the color

as it

is carried

  on the wind