“Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your soul.” — The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

Perhaps it’s madness, trying to reach you like this:

rushing toward the shore like this, rushing with each swell, rushing to a crest,

thinking this time will be different.

The tide pulls, the reef quells, even the wind whispers 

to stay, stay, stay.

But you are there—there, on the shore! You stand at the water’s edge!

Perhaps this time, this time… yes, I will try again!

Because there’s hope, or something like it, something like 

hope in the crash, the swirl, the ever-yearning to sink 

your feet into the sand, that somehow, somehow, 

that something that divides sand and sea 

from each other will sink away, 

the way a cliffside spills 

into the sea

Here, I’ve brought you gifts:

stones smothered to smoothness;

sea glass, the same;

a crab leg and some seaweed;

empty shells full of the sound of me