Walk Softly by Susan L.

There is a damp and sandy shore where waves have left their mark,/ Holding bare toed footprints for a breathless moment/ Before rushing, washing back on land, erasing them from sight./ The beach was walked from there to here/ But no sign showed the naked eye/ Of others who had passed this way for ages and an age./ It doesn't mean they had never been/ Their presence has been felt by God in a shell removed,/ A stick, a stone, or another simple treasure./ Or even something left behind: a shoe, a shovel, a broken twig./ Farther in among the places dry and thick with shifting sand/ One print wipes out another before the ocean breeze/ Erasing them both with sliding, shifting, miniscule grains./ It's the intangible path, the hidden way, the secret/ Long denied that leaves its traces permanently/ On the beaches of our soul. "But be gentle to all." 2Ti 2:24