The children wade naked and thigh-deep
in stone-colored water. They duck under
and come up flinging drops from their hair.
Wind raises gooseflesh on their arms.
Touch is the miracle, wrote Whitman.
Touch is the earth’s language and the children
speak it. They revel in it. Wind and water,
and the hard, wave-patterned sand underfoot.
Sound, in its flutter against the inner ear,
and light’s weightless impingement
on the intricate, seven-layered retina.