A stilted shack at the tide line is a memory of times past.  Kiri island is untouched in that  there are no wrappers, no bottles, no scarring of human presence — except the shack.  On the beach, elevated above the high water mark a shack with rolled rattan windows.  Elevated beyond the reaches of the diurnal tide range.  With a designed precision that could surpass a laser level.  In the shadow of beneath the floor sand critters chill.  Across the water, a sandbar away, another island connected by coral sands.

Riding the waves at sunrise, Margaret catches the breeze and the morning cloud.  The promised rain arrives as a warm shower before we could paddle to shelter in the shadow of the shack.  Across the shallows the kayak skims breaking the silence whenever the bottom meets the coral sand.

The nearer island has signs of life — Palm Trees, Mangrove trees and even signs of presence.  A boat skeleton, a rusting tin shack, a plantation house and a church steeple.  Imagination could create fiction.  Time with her governed cycles will wash over everything, everyone, everyplace warming us to the idea that our shells and shelters are a part of “all that we have met” and will serve and sublimate to the tides of time.