My Son And I Ambled Along The Sand Poem by William L Roberts

My son and I ambled along the sand,
Heading for a resort town
A mile or so down the beach.
We came upon a Miller Lite can
Stranded in the flotsam
Right at the high tide line.
I said, 'This could be a real find,
It could hold a message
From a land we know nothing about.'
He'd had a fight with his cousins,
We were all sharing a rental cottage,
And when they trashed his sand castle,
He needed to get away and walk it out.
I bent to pick up the can
To leave the beach cleaner,
(We both knew it was just litter)
'Leave it Dad, maybe the message's for their spies,
They're like checking us out.'
A claw appeared from the can,
The crab scuttled out
And vanished in the sand.
'See? Bet that's one of their guys.'

I asked what he thought that land was like,
He said he didn't know
I said I didn't know either
And for a land no one knows about,
That was just fine.
He smiled and picked up a shell,
The rest of the day went well.

Later, when he and his cousins lay asleep inside,
The grownups sat on the deck and drank wine.
The talk turned to how some children
Are just needy and require support all the time.

I cast my mind adrift and pictured the can
Singular on that lonely stretch of sand.
Looking out after the long journey through space,
Now's the moment of exploration
What'll I find out in that beautiful barren sundrenched place?
No one knows if life exists across the universe,
Some say its dense, some its sparse,
Others say we should have a care.
I fear that nothing's to be found out there
To ease this despair.