Solitary Musing

On a spring evening in the ward, I press two seashells against my ears, and, closing my eyes, hear the roar of the waves in faraway Tsugaru, as we heard them then, standing shoulder to shoulder, atop the dunes of Tsugaru in the spring of my seventeenth year. And I hear the caw of the gulls that skim the waves, as, left alone to solitary musings on this early evening in spring, I feel my heart pounding.