Like children who apparently unplanned,
decide to bond and charge the grown-up talk,
the Gulf, without a warning surge, charges up the sand.

Wave upon wave, plummeting turmoil and foam,
pooled shells spill where hunters lately stalked,
filled with crabby indiscretions of chaste hermit’s home.

Homes? Shells? When wind erases all normal days?
For now, parental tide protects the generous land;
tomorrow will we dread the deadlier phase?