"When the Water and Sand Dance" by D. R. James
poetry
When the Water and Sand Dance When the water and sand dance, whence (whence?) their music? What is that music? What sense, what composition surfs itself in? Yes, the water—its bazillion droplets, the mini-jetsam line it etches. Yes, the sand—its gazillion granules, the sponging gauze-and-muslin of them. But what but mind imagines there’s music? Perhaps the end of your century also hauled along its ton of sadness as did mine. And perhaps the years have finally worn it down to barely anything of your day-to-day. The sun and shadows play again their fetching fine effects. The moon and birds and even dying leaves relieve your smallest residue of gloom. But mind—must it remember anyway? And is it therefore grateful, more than happy in that moment, to cue its private music, then tune your needy ear to every measure when the water and the sand dance?  
D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. Having come late to poetry at 50, in the past 20 years he has published ten collections, the latest being Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press). https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage