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Snail Sailors

They blow their bubbles as the morning wind

rustles the sea oats on the crests of dunes;

they congregate on heights,

laboriously crawling to the wobbly tips of the giant grasses.

It takes them all night to get from the surf to the dune tops,

where they wait for the wind to build.

When it does, bubbles blown, they let go,

careering across the dry flats,

swaying like gondolas beneath county-fair balloons,

carried over the shimmering road, the

campsites in their meagre shade,

the steamy bay.

Landward they fly, grasping their

bubble-transports with their feet,

until they scent below them the cold aquamarine of lakes.

They release the balloons then, plummet earthward,

cannon-balling into the chilly waters,

vanguard of a strange invasion.