The Whale in the Sand

A giant shadow on the sands

The tide betrayed

It slipped my hands

A lantern flickers

Pale and low

Who brought me here? I’ll never know

The air burns dry

My lungs complain

Oh

Where’s the cool of the ocean’s reign?

Slave to the moon

The pull and the sway

Bound to its rhythm

It led me astray

A thousand nights

But not one more

The ocean calls from a distant shore

The stars

They laugh in their cold parade

While children poke with sticks and spades

A gull screams loud

A ghostly hymn

A choir of salt

And I'm part of them

The air burns dry

My lungs complain

Oh

Where’s the cool of the ocean’s reign?

Slave to the moon

The pull and the sway

Bound to its rhythm

It led me astray

A thousand nights

But not one more

The ocean calls from a distant shore

A sailor’s pipe

A tattered kite

The driftwood dreams of a child’s delight

A bottle spins

Its message bare

"I lived

I died

I left my care."