The Point Where The Sun Hovers Just Below The Horizon

              

For Ritva Kaje

Sandcastle contest at Ocean Beach.

San Francisco, Easter  '99

In a cold wind hammering like nails

Into the palms

Whose long shadows fell

Along the ocean esplanade

Like a row of towering crucifixes

 

She came to us

In a garden of white lilies 

Whipped by a merciless wind

Arisen beside the tide 

To stop and reach out to us

And ask of us our hearts

On this Easter.

 

Kindly, we each gave her a peace of gold.

She came to us on an ocean wind

That brought her many years ago

From Iceland.

She came lightly dressed in a request,

Lightly dressed in a question,

Lightly clad in a cold proverb.

 

In her thin house dress,

She transcended

This bitter wind

With profound forbearing and endurance.

 

She wore it like a martyr's robe,

Wore it like Christ's shroud,

And I was compelled to listen carefully

To the words of this stranger

Who seemed like she had been fed

To the lions of the arena in a horrific spectacle,

Who seemed like she had suffered a long crucifixion,

And had yet miraculously survived

And was now transfigured.

She gave us her name and her hand,

A hand she then held above her ageless eyes

Because she wanted to see

If we knew anything

About sandcastles or

The point where the sun hovers

Just below the horizon,

For that was the meaning of her name.

 

Now a widow in her later years, she informed us

"We are all sandcastles washed away."

 

In the land of the midnight sun

This was an old proverb.

 

Because of it she was eager to be on her way.

We told her

The pyramids, mermaids, dragons, and castles

Beside the ocean were still there,

Their essence 

Perfectly realized 

In forms of sand

Only a brief Way beyond.

 

And she cried with glee,

“…yes, yes…”,

Almost running toward the tide,

Her hope resurrected 

To know they could still be found.

She told us

She was on her way to find a sandcastle

That was far in the distance

While there was still time,

Before the tide came in,

Before the sun went down.

 

She shared with us her faith

That she would find it.

She said she hoped

She didn’t seem crazy.

We told her

No, not at all.

Godspeed.

You are only crazy

If you believe in the illusions of this world, said my friend.

Sculpted into a bridge

In the ultimate hour of light,

The three of us bonded for a moment

Like moist sand in a brief embrace,

And as she was pulled toward the ocean shore,

Toward the sand sculptures arisen there that day,

We watched her walk through herself,

Following the falling sun

And melting into the horizon

To the point just below it.