Boy, girl, boy, girl. Blond-haired two, boy, girl. They thrill in eternity of summer, though only two have seen ten. Through tunnel of trees as dunes converge framing the Big Lake, Michigan, its endless monologue set to waves. Clamber down more wooden steps and spray out onto the beach, narrow between wave and bluff, reaching indolently up, a casual cliff, green and white, two humps of purple-brown clay poking out front.
Beach stands as avenue, north-south.
North to distant pier, white lighthouse stands on horizon, capped with black. South past distant bluffs, green, wandering lazily with the lake. Wander north, picking amid drift wood shapes, hunt petosky stones mid lapping water, cool to the touch of feet and reaching hands. They wade on layers of stone, rock, painful to all but young toughened feet, bare. Babble of voices constant companion, closer than kin comfort found in shared soul, each partakes and contributes a portion of their own.