sunlight plays off the rippling wavelets,
bejewelling the water’s surface with
tiny explosions,
cascades
of transient sparkles.

that’s where the shooting stars go, don’t you see?
they fall from the sky at midnight, only to land in daytime
fleetingly, suddenly, softly
here,
stopping by for an ephemeral glimmer
before they blink out and away
to some unknown otherworlds,
leaving no trail or trace
except
(in the wistful eyes of those who glimpsed them)
the bittersweet afterglow
of evanescence.