There are moments
I hold my breath to hear your silence,
reach through the yonder glare,
to feel you again.
Moments I sit on the sand-filled ledge,
where the sea pulls secrets, edge by edge.
Silver lining collapsing evening hue
in this fading light, I think of you.
Solemn shoreline loosens grip on soul,
while sand and shell give way,
seas take control.
I breathe deep, then slowly exhale,
watching the waning sky,
along horizonās trail.
Minutes pass, the moment holds,
I watch the waters drift and fold.
Eyes lift upward to the sun,
counting moon-steps, one by one.
Waving farewell to passing day,
tomorrow rises, stars convey
something moving, old made new,
something time cannot undo.
Golden sunken horizon thins to seam,
gull-songs stitch the dark into dream.
You cradle dawn within your hand,
porcelain shadow where you stand.
A cup rimmed gold, this truth you knew,
hairline crack in evening dew.
Like a promise rescued, kept from frost,
the siren sings until weāre lost.
Steam drifts from sunsetās glass,
hesitant a comets pass.
And in that tremor, moment stays,
you see the shaping of new days:
a map of soft returns to me,
an address painted what will be.
In the backwash of the tide,
to the distance, dreams confide.
Set down the moth-eaten doubts,
set down the worn coat and withouts.
Clinging still to shoulder bare
what is left but starlightās stare?
Let the wind unbutton past,
let the waves wash slow, not last.
Footprints fade though memoryās true,
and you, my constant time canāt undo.
Both hands cupped around this hope,
lean forward, breathe the words I wrote.
Sip the future fractured, warm,
burnished bright through autumnās form.
Grateful though the day is done,
we walk beneath a dying sun.
Cherry blossoms gilded dusk,
petals fall like lanterns brushed.
Starlight filters crooked boughs,
a silver lattice, vow by vow.
Still you keep the cup on sill,
not for heat, but crescent fill
that tiny wound where gold lets in,
that secret place the light begins.
The room remembers waiting still,
the hush recalls your name at will.
A shadow sways with lampās soft tide,
not gone, not lost just thinner, wide.
And on page twenty-two you see,
your hand once wrote: āBring life to me.ā
Ink is faint, but heartbeat beats,
a steady drum that never sleeps.
We did not shatter.
We unspooled.
Like thread along the oceanās ruled,
pulled soft, pulled long by each returning wave, still tethered by the love we gave.
Some nights you wear that strand to bed,
an armor woven where longing bled.
You dream the ritual, cup held high,
sip taken slow beneath the sky.
And dawn stranger though it seems
passes through like tide in our dreams.
Gentle, certain, shadows bright,
readying the world
for one more light.
14 September 2025
Watching the Tide
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
