From a last memory of Subic Bay

Tales in The Sand
By Noelle Leslie de la Cruz

For M.R.G.

Years ago, you didn’t have a daughter yet
all of us in our circle were single, closer to 20
than to adulthood. Our only out-of-town trip
remember, that night-long drive through the forest
passing sentinels of monkeys on the wayside
their lax fingers dragging on the ground
and their tails curling like questions marks.
The sun had sunk behind the mountains
by the time we reached the road’s end
where the beach poured into the bay.

You got out and ran to the water, jumping in
with all your clothes on. We waded ankle-deep
and watched you swim as far out as you dared,
your feet sinking beneath the surface
like the phantom fins of a mermaid.
It was as close to the open as we could get,
the warm, wet sand swirling around our limbs.

I had a sudden sense then of another sea
we were swimming in: a sea of sand that streamed
endlessly through the funnel of God’s hourglass,
where even the fondest girlhood memories
could not moor us. There was sand under my fingers,
sand in my damp hair and ears, sand in my heart
as I watched you swim farther and farther out,
until you were a speck lost in the shifting grains.

Back on the shore, I found unlikely comfort
in the rock cliffs that bordered the beach. After all,
they had assumed their faithful stance for millennia
against the onslaught of wind and brine, yielding
a fraction of a fraction of themselves each year.
Just as these great rocks must surrender
to the elemental encroachment, I realized that
so too must we shed a thousand parts
of ourselves as time passes, until we become
as fine, as wise, as lovely as sand.