Time and Driftwood

You can't hold water and wood in the mind at once and not also fold in the passage of time. As in Born of Driftwood by Gretchen Steele Pratt:

Teacher is building a shack of driftwood, building it on the far shore. We watch from the schoolhouse windows, taking turns with her old silver binoculars. She gathers all manner of driftwood into her apron and sometimes passes by the beach in front of the school but does not turn her face to us.

Tree trunk, roots and all, on Chesterman Beach, Tofino, BC.

Consider the poem Driftwood by Simon Armitage:

A huge purple door washed up in the bay overnight,

its paintwork blistered and peeled from weeks at sea.

In the picture book universe, Driftwood Days by William Miniver, illustrated by Charles Vest (Eerdmans) calls on us to pay attention to the natural world. Along with the boy in the book, we follow a stick, the seasons, and a river going out to sea. All of which is really about the passage of time. The child and his play represent us, placing us in the big world, against the backdrop of the forces that shape it. Back matter adds further context, suggesting we pay attention to these objects that wash up on our shores.