he sits on the shore watching the waves roll in amazed at the pull of the moon on the oceanic tide

he digs at the soft dirt with a spade shaped like a heart gripped tightly in his callused hands

a small hole becomes a pit becomes a trench as he slowly moves down the beach

he has no endgame in mind as he digs but he knows it feels good to stab at the earth in futility

she has a ladle that she scoops water from the sea then pours into the freshly dug trench

it is soaked into the thirsy mud no matter how quickly she rushes back and forth from sea to mud

she has no motivation behind her steps but it feels good to pour the seawater into the open wound

on he digs, on she pours

the winds pick up as a storm dances in jagged bolts of light race from cloud to cloud above

soon the sea grows angry at the spectacle of the thunder with taller and taller waves forming

the waves lash up at the sky, the thunder rumbles a throaty growl, tumultuous insignificance howls

still he digs, still she pours

the waves crash across the ground to fill the trench and slide back out to sea ever smaller

she stops ladling the water into the trench with a look of broken hearted disconcertion in her eyes

then she begins to take the water from the trench ladle by ladle back into the sea as waves crash

he watches, she ladles

the water rushes in with every new thrust of spade into the soil to fill it in as he dilligently digs

so he takes the dirt by the spadeful and piles it to form a wall in front of his trivial trench

but every new waves crashes his wall back into the water that fills his once grand chasm to the top

finally he sits, at last she stops

and the rain falls on them as they give in to the defeat unable to admit the foolishness inherent

neither satisfied by the outcome but incapable of besting the stern countenance of nature herself

there is always tomorrow to try again with heart shaped spade and gently curved ladle