ONCE AGAIN, THE SEA

(Featured Art: Cloud and Sea by Maggie Huscroft, U.K.)

And once again, the sea,
true blue source of each numbered breath,
brown-grey witness to each predestined death;
keeper of the translucent grains that Time uses
to measure, define, defy, others, or itself;
one with the element of each bead
that is always shaped like a drop
forming on my brow or collapsing on my cheeks
making wisdom stronger than truth
in the ability to separate itself from a lie.

And how far into wisdom has the sea evolved?
For the times that the land was able
to encircle the sea with lying arms
and gave it a crushing inland hug
the tear was never meant to move mountains
so the sea simply conjured itself into clouds
and flew back to the ocean.
The pain was in leaving the rest of the ties behind.
The consolation was in knowing
that one can always have a new beginning.
The reality of an afterlife before death.