At the shore

I don’t know the language,
I don’t know
how the rounded pebbles got here,
or which rocks were ground down
to make this clay coloured sand.

Did these leathery leaves blow
or wash up like that?
How long until the tide takes
the seaweed again?
Whose are these feathers?
Who burrows in the sand,
what swims ten feet out in the water?

Someone knows these answers.
Someone loves this beach
and is known by it
for the press of their foot,
for the skin the sand sloughs off
and mixes with its own.

Someone belongs here,
cries here, reads the wind,
knows it by wave and swell.
Someone mingles themselves
with this sea, blesses themselves
with this water.

I don’t know this place,
but I know this love,
take me home,
take me home.