When the northeastern sweeps across the coast,
a little boy looks to the horizon, mouth agape for one moment
before he returns to the sand.
He digs and digs, his plastic shovel, blue and furious,
digging until the shovel reaches hard packed dirt, and he can go no further.
Dismayed, but partly amused, the boy lays the shovel in the hole and covers it with dirt.
He wipes his hands together and swipes away excess sand,
the way his father does after the axe is put away,
and the way his mother does, when all of the dishes are washed, and the only thing left to do is have a cup of tea.
And although he'll return tomorrow, behind the shed where the stone bulwark opens to the sand, and across the sand to the water, he will never again find the blue shovel or remember why
he buried it in the first place.