"Sand castles" by Gioconda Belli

 

Why didn’t you say you were building
that sandcastle?

It would have been so lovely
to enter through its little door
wander the salty corridors
waiting on shell paintings,
speaking to you from the balcony
with the mouth full of white and transparent foam
like my words,
these light words I say to you,
with no more than the weight
of the air between my teeth.

It is so beautiful to contemplate the sea.

The sea would have been so lovely
from our sand castle
licking time
with the vast and deep
tenderness of water,
rambling about the stories they told us
when, as children, we were a single pore
open to nature.

Now the water took your sandcastle
at high tide.

It carried away the towers,
the pits,
the little door we would have crossed
at low tide,
when reality is afar
and there are sand castles
on the beach.