I walked to the edge and stepped into the cool, clear water of this great lake—Michigan, where a long sand beach, briefly interrupted by washed rocks along the southern island shoreline, reflected the rosy shades of an evening sun.
And stood looking over its rippled surface to the point where it dissolved into sky--
waves stealing sand from beneath my toes, and replacing it above, until I was planted there--
absorbed into its perfectly sculpted velvet plane.
Between the fading blades of beach grass, there is a delicate blue, barely seen scattered across the dunes feet from shore. Delicate white orchids still catch the last amber rays, though their twisting stems are barely 6 inches tall.
And, as the sun drops deeper into the western horizon, glowing warmly over Hog Island, a calm settles over the water--the shallowest waves still reaching in their cleansing and settling way.
A small sandpiper walks in their wake, scurrying just ahead of my feet, his back strikingly mottled—matching a pattern that could be piles of small stones or pockets of tiny white clam shells.
And stops stepping to look at me.
Until his feet, too, are buried beneath wave-washed sand.
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