I.
Here a grain of sand, alone and withal;
a granule among the grit and the paper's tooth.
How coarse the wind wears a particle for naught but the wearing;
not to be further broken despite the beating.
Even the smallest element meets resistance against the tide,
but why be contrarily so? The dunes are piled high, stowed
with those carried in accordance or discordance with the airs;
it matters not whether the one resists and the other complies.
All trials and troubles end the same. All efforts piled together as one
without distinction what arrived willfully or reluctantly.
It is not so much to embrace another sand any more than
to present arms to one another we are thrown against
in defensive reaction.
What is this distinction of one to another?
What is one speck to another and another and another?
Here a grain of sand, and there another. The first is unique,
but the second is unique. And the third...the third is unique.
The fourth is unique in a manner the first three are only unique.
The first was the fourth and now the second is the third and all are
swept together as commonly and indistinctly as they were individually.
There is not one sand but two. And three. And five. These are not sands
but a dune and not a dune at all, but all parts.
