Running ahead beside the sea,
You turned and flung a smile, like spray.
It glittered like tossed spray in the sunlight.
Yes, well I remember, to this day,
That glittering ambiguity.

* *

I saw, when your foot fulfilled its stride,
How the sand, compressed, burst to silver light,
But when I had reached that aureoled spot
There was only another in further flight:
And bright hair, wind-strung, to tease the sun’s pride.

*

Yes, far away and long ago,
In another land, on another shore,
That race you won—even as it was lost,
For if I caught you, one moment more,
You had fled my grasp, up and to go

* *

With glowing pace and the smile that mocks
Pursuit down whatever shore reflects
Our flickering passage through the years,
As we enact our more complex
Version of Zeno’s paradox.

This Issue

October 16, 1975