italy
Tens of millions of years
running through my fingers.
The waves break on a long
bed of multicolored pebbles.
Laying next to an Alpine stream,
streaming down meter upon
kilometer of rocky distance into
the azure bath-water of the
Mediterranean Sea.
We have traveled farther
than the Africans selling
handcrafted bracelets with
bells on them. What once
seemed as far away as
Eden, is sticking to my back
and filtering through my lungs.
Frothing crests curl and lunge
on and then into the beachside,
underwater the only sound
is the hissing of stones. In another
million years, these pebbles
will erode to fine sand and the landscape,
like myself, will transform.