Castanet Dance

Sugar sand for twenty miles
and we are alone
As the tide recedes
to reveal a brand new world
of broken shells and polished glass.
and trash from the sea.
Little foot prints fill with foam,
dwarfed by the track of a walking crane
I stand in the surf
Holding back the Gulf of Mexico
to shield you from
sharks and stingrays.
But today the only danger
is a napping crab in the high tide debris
who wakes to your stooping curiosity
to do his castanet dance
to your shrieking song
that charms the gulls,
leaving crab tracks
back to the Gulf
and toe prints halfway to the dunes.