klara[dot]nz

Lonely beaches at 10, out in the rain,

Mud and rock together with shell.

A little stream turns it all orange.

Headlights on the road, but not once on the bay.

If the wind was my only accompaniment,

I wished I'd brought my band.

We could belt out noise

To match the landscape.

From hours of silence to hearing damage,

I'd wreck that piano in my fervor.

Keys splintered and strewn about,

Strings snapped from tension,

Leaving only muffled groans from a dead instrument:

The final performance.

And then we'd play again.

Instead I'd listen to the bubbles in the sand,

Crabs making their home,

Driftwood like drums, clouds like the rest of an audience

(A compliment to the water of the waves),

And the pitter-patter of rocks skimmed

So far out to sea then sunk;

Never skimmed again.