"now, and then, and sometime when..."

time sinks behind
the lines of sand like surf foam
with the rising tide...
of now, and
then,
and sometime
when

i wait, and in the
breathing of the sea
I lose myself
in wondering if
now is then,
or now is yet to be.

when it occurs to
ask:

am I not thinking in the
present tense of
conscious thought, right
here and now

and when I imagine
what will be
am I not contemplating
right here,
in this moment
of my living

walking down the
beach today
I watch my footsteps
dissapear behind
me with each
ebb and flow of salt and sea
and
wonder:

did I ever really touched the
the sand over my shoulder,
or was the memory
of what had been only
never more than what I feel, right now, underneath
my
feet,
not dreams remembered, or imaginations
coming
true....

if time is
neither linear, inflexible, or set in stone...
...a taunting or a haunting,
but simply a perspective...one way of managing
a string of mortal measurements, placed
like wooden beads on a long red string,
then let me
lose that thread
and hold the colors in my
hand like a child
building
rainbows out of
wood
or castles out of
sand...