Measured Sands was commissioned by the Green Lake Festival of Music Composer Residency (John C. Hughes, conductor).

MEASURED SANDS

​

Still afraid to touch down 
in murky waters, I return
to the place that reveals me
to myself.

​

We were children saying
someday we’ll be here
with our children.

​

Our desire to come back
was barnacled with wanting
as the rock by which 
we measured the tide.

​

Younger, we dug for clams
on sandbars, found the sand
was greyer, yielding, darker, 
only when we dug deeper.

​

I imagined, here, I’d hold 
a daughter. Now, my brother 
swims with his son.

​

The water level’s higher 
in the bay, the ocean
hardly covering the rock.

​

This place holds every tide,
the daughter she lost.
It offers up each empty shell,

each immutable stone,

the memories we buried 
in the sand, greyer, yielding,
darker the deeper we dig.

​

—Dale Trumbore