Small Boy's Summer

                    Small Boy's Summer

Gathering stones, feathers, small purple crabs, prying brown granite rocks.
Splendid-eyed, sun-lit blue, he follows every shrimp dart.

Returned to the house, sorting buckets, he admìred clear agate, ropes, seaweed, eroded glass.

Transparent quills, one cracked bottle, unbroken shell convolutions, and eleven outraged hermit crabs.

Suddenly, a shade altered his mood.  He saw morning sun beam a decal quail on the glass door and exclaimed, "a bird is floating on the table!"

He sat awhile, pensive, a chiseled face resting on his left palm, musing on sunlight shapes a boy can't hold.