Aegean tides gently bathe white shores
A purple sky, day’s end approaches
Bluish colours darken deep before
So stars, convinced, reveal their motions
and sands, still warm, are cooling
With his walking stick in one old hand
His sandals dangling in the other
In the evening beach there walks a man
Who, as he slowly walks, he wonders
just who the gods are fooling
Breathing the aroma of the sea
Watching the setting sun of twilight
His aging eyes peer the mystery
And admire the silk of nighttime;
how darkness starts to shimmer
Carefully, he collects seven stones
And placing the largest at his feet
He twirls around in the sand and combs
With his stick – he traces circle streaks
and maps the solar system
He places a stone in each new groove
Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Mars
Saturn, the Sun, and not last the Moon
Earth; to witness them and to the stars;
soon to wash away in waves
Little did he know of his drawings
Were all part of the long ancient spell
Of knowledge, wisdom’s magic scrawling
Enchanted science which would propel
he’d conjured up the space age
David Coyle 