build it on rock so your building won’t sway.
He was told that the currents of life will assail you
and only hard granite can keep them away.
He nodded and thanked all of those who advised him
yet chose to ignore all that they had to say.
By morn he was working, he brushed out a pattern,
a pattern on sand that let light find its way,
he laid out the beams of the house he would sleep in
the pattern of sleep beams on sand in a day.
His neighbors, they watched him, from partly drawn shutters
The beams and the sleep sand all caused them dismay
No curtains he added, no curtains he wanted,
his windows were open, all men could peer in
The sun fell on beams
on the sand, on the dreams
of the sleep that it seems
gave him respite from sin.
His hard rock companions would whisper and natter
and grimace and chatter in their gray rock way.
They gathered in meetings with insistent bleatings
of no-curtain sand dreams and hard-rockless sand beams
that mocked their foundations with his disarray.
When storm clouds appeared on the red sky horizon
they gathered their trinkets and shuttered their windows.
They showed to their children the dark clouds of gray.
No storm surge would batter the things they had gathered,
their fortress-like walls would keep danger at bay.
The wind howled, the waves churned, the dark heavens thundered,
the long rolling breakers smashed into the quay.
He picked up his surf board and kicked off his sandals.
He ran to the water and stood in the spray.
He dove in the water, he paddled with fury.
At last had arrived
the sensation alive
that finally would drive
his dry sand dreams away.
His beams became driftwood,
his windows a memory,
his sand was reclaimed by the water that day.
He raced with the wreckage and raced past his neighbors
who huddled in fear in the fruits of their labors
who praised their good sense
and who praised their good savior
for keeping the wind and the water away.
They assumed he was lost
to the whims of the sea
that his corpse had been tossed
on the piles of debris
and they used his example to give a stern warning
that lack of ambition is prelude to mourning
that caution and planning and careful behavior
are all that keep tragedy safely at stay.
The sun rose again, rose again the next morning.
and several more suns changed the nights into days
before children saw toiling a lone sun-dark figure
a figure of sun beams, a figure of sand dreams
a figure of sun dried dream beams by the bay.
Again he was working, he brushed out a pattern,
a pattern on sand that let light find its way,
he laid out the beams of the house he would sleep in
the pattern of sleep beams on sand in a day.