Hope In The Sea

‘Ebb Tide’ … WHB  2017 ©

 

The promise of the sea
As it thrusts towards the shore
Is of resurgent love
And with it
the swell in my heart soars
Its tide in turn repeating
What once I had before
When life was young
And in its flow

Now as it ebbs
It is not easy
To renew that glow
Which once provided
all the hope
Of future bliss I ever needed
When sun kissed seas
Spoke loud their passion
Their cresting waves
Breaking one on one
In repeating fashion
Mirroring my wishes
Releasing desires
Bringing the froth and foam
Of hope
To these cool shores

Ribbed sand now reminds
Of what is yet to come
The ripples of my heartbeat
Become the breakers
bolstering my breath 
The thrill of expectation
Arriving with the tide

On what distant shores
have those same waves
Broken their strength
And torn in two
My harried heart

 

The Daggers in my Words

I didn’t see her
crying on the evening beach.
I knew she was there
and why
but I didn’t see her crying there.

I wasn’t there and yet I knew
I felt her pain
because I was the cause
L’amour fait mal
the perpetrator of the hurt

As she stood over the still rock pool
pretending to be looking for the sand crabs
I heard her tears drop into the still sea water,
the ripple that I knew they were sending out
threatening to tell the world
of my reckless disregard

Without touching
I felt her sobbing against my chest
sharing heartbeats almost
hers racing
as though to beat the tide to the foreshore
mine following after to steady her haste

Her perfume floated to me on the salty air
a reminder, a tell-tale allusion to her presence
a  fragrant sea-balm redolent of only her
an aroma meant to draw me to that distant beach

And yet I was not there
I had no sight of her distress
only the certain knowledge
my senses heightened by the evening’s stillness
by my guilt, and by the opprobrium I deserved

I sensed all that upheaval
the ending of a dream can bring
more hurtful
when that dream had seemed so attainable

Unseeingly I connected with her on that beach
sequestered from the torrent of words
which was to come
by the murmur of the waves
breaking upon the sand
striving for that mark
which would signal the tide turning
and come to that apotheosis
which we had once hoped would be our future
but which now seemed in doubt
if not surrendered
even stabbed in its infancy
  by the daggers in my words   

Photographs by courtesy of Canadian artist Alma Kerr