The old woman laughs, a silent sound; so like bright leaves on frozen ground

The sky is grey, and sand is tan, and smooth curving driftwood grey again

A quilt of scattered stitches and wheeling fabric birds caught in skillful strands

Her footprints are a careful trail behind her, her eyes upon the sky and shore and never ending sea

Her footprints trail behind her to be smoothed away in a foam-capped wave of time

Her hair shifts gently in the murmuring breeze, shining white in contrast with slatey sea

She is tall like a tree, like the wingtips of swirling birds; but graceful like curving willow leaves
We walk alongside her now, three generations, footprints upon the sand

We walk together now, though she is gone, a year or so
        Her hair of purest white,

one of shining silver,

and another of dull gold

Three generations, three women walking along the silent sand

Two mourn, but she gazes at the birds and points with an elegant ?nger and another

Silent laugh

Our hands link, swinging gently with the breeze

Curves of driftwood, time-worn trees, they wait and sigh and greet us three

We gaze at them, bare of branches and laden with ghosts of leaves, she knows these quiet forms
            Those trees are gone now, she and them, a piece of past so common but so dear

She knows them each, old friends, unremarkable now until memory's end

Old friends, we gather smooth shells in our hands, tiny holes from some small forgotten bit of sea

We hang them on the driftwood tree, decorated so, hundreds of hands and shells and memories

One last time, us three,

Under looming trees, long dead and pitted elegance, like driftwood but older still, gazing upon our footprints in the sand

Who remembers them? Though they are gone, a year or so?

Who remembers them, but we?

So we turn and smile and walk again, but she has strolled away, once hand in hand

In the distance we spot, footsteps trail behind, a tiny ?gure too small to see

And grey sky, grey wood, grey sea, and softly shifting sands; endless water,

And the quietly whispering breeze.