Sea Glass and Sand Dunes

Once again, I've spent my day drifting among the drifting dunes staring at colorful bits of ocean-tumbled glass that shimmer, sparkle and refract the still-warm October light in my shaking uncertain hand as though I was looking into my very own past and future at the same time that was made from pieces like these, pieces of joy, heartache, happiness and little shards of leftover sorrow that had repeatedly washed ashore over a lifetime of trying to recall everything that ever mattered. And the gulls know, for they know everything and see everything from their airborne perch and they, no doubt, know everything about this drifting drifter now settled snug and secure in the side of an ever-changing dune, my wind-shifted haven for this wanderer who comes here every day scouring the beach and scouring the soul for blue, green, frosted and amber gems loosened from Neptune's necklace hidden amid stranded seaweed and the twisted wood of abandoned piers and long-sunken boats that have been worn down in the dark briny depths into otherworldly sculpted creatures along this deserted beach of my sun-faded childhood. What is it about sea glass and sand dunes I ask myself and any passing stranger who also believes in salt-laden breezes, rock jetties, lighthouses, old fishing nets, tarnished brass lanterns, rain-soaked Saturdays and the bellowing of unseen foghorns? I quietly put my fragmented multicolored amulets in my pocket and begin the walk home amid patches of beach grass and goldenrod to the endless sound of icy-gray waves and the cries of my friends the gulls who know I will be back another day to drift and to ponder and to search for even more sea glass and sand dunes once again.