A Tribute to Sand

There are prints to be deciphered
in a medium that does not last.
In a time that will not wait for hopeful human fate.

The homeland has been battered,
brought back to its long lost past.
Memory, a washed up date, on the edge of a sandbar state.

Dates, well, they blow away too.
They flow and flow through a glassy tube
only to bury us all in a sandy tomb,
as if we'd never left the earthly womb.

Weathered, worn, and indescript.
A message born on a beach that slipped
beneath a stage, into a quickened crypt.
All but a memory, pitted, stripped.

Of anything treasured like life itself.
Of anything bought off the store shelf.
Of anything you thought you permanently held
in a sinking sandy void.

Ἑλένη, so that is your name, your claim to fame,
to the detriment and pain of those who deciphered you name.

'Flame'? Does that mix with your watery theme?
Your quenching scheme to stifle screams
& send them downstream.

Hélène! The most destructive fury we've ever seen.