based on Wallace Stevens’ “The Snow Man”
The Sand Castle
One must have a mind of sand
To regard the ocean and the tides
Of water going out, coming in
And have been both wet and dry
To build castles constructed of grains
The structure fragile as the sand itself
In the September sun and not to think
Of any sadness in the sound of the waves,
In the sound of a few gulls
Which is the sound of that island
Full of the same wind
That is blowing at home in the hills
For the builder, who builds in the sun,
And, child itself, shapes
child that does not dig and child that does.
