Ripples

The riffled sand crumples the shelving shore;

The beach is sorted into toga folds.
Grains in the hollows are peppery fine,
coarse in the ripple crests round shaped like sine.

Possessing the same wavelength crest to crest, 
the ripples, parallel like desert dunes,
spread like the violent slap of a giant’s hand.

Crest and trough are formed in the flat shallows

where running wavelets play out the wind-fetch,

rocking the waters below to and fro,

sculpting hillocks and hollows by fluid-flow.

Over time the ripple prints have shifted.

A stone has left a Goliath too weak

to haul himself from the ocean vortex.