On The Bleached-White Sand

(written Noon, Sunday, October 17, 1965)

Lying bleeding
On the bleached-white sand
Staring blankly
Through the barren sky
Until a thousand tingling colors
Dancing hand-in-hand,
Waltz gayly in a minute's hour
Over some unfeeling, nameless land.

Forgotten face,
A folded dollar bill
Faded, wooded place That only childhood knew,
A summer's day
Upon the beach
A strange, enchanting shell,
Lying out of reach
Upon the sand,
A colored shell,
A sunset's shell,
A lips-of-honey, blood-red shell,
A burning shell,
Burning only out of reach
Upon the sun-baked sand,
Bleeding, barely out of reach
Upon the summer sand.

Soldier of the retrospect
In some tomorrow band,
Lying bleeding,
Lying dying
On the bleached-white sand.

- Sitaram