Playa de Jaco...

Running my fingers along the volcanic sand,
dark and grainy, as it sticks to my fingers and is caught in your hair,
long, lovely and dark as the rivers that empty into the sea...
draining me away into the cool and dark room.

Unfold me and hold me there in the sweet smell...
with the tinkling ice against the sides of the glasses,
slick with the droplets as they pool at the base.

Gently swaying bare bulbs,
in a string of bright pearls of light against the dark.
As we go out to walk the beach again,
the jungle smells of wet earth and flowers.

And always the sea, chasing and licking at our feet
until, enticed, we wade in to knee depth water,
stand and kiss under the light of a thousand stars
that are never this clear and close
in the dark nights of home.

As we embrace and turn our backs to the sea
caught up in each others' gifts...
a wave catches us unprepared
and in a rolling, laughter-caught-in-your-throat instant
it is pulling the sand from under our feet
and tumbling us through the currents
as we are pulled inexorably towards the deep.

I burst through the frothing surface foam
to find you laughing...
and gulping great lungfuls of air
as we collapse on that beach.

Piled in ecstasies that only those
who have lived in a dark and quiet sadness
and been let out into the light of the world
can know.