The Widening Sky**
I feel myself shrinking,
walking the night beach
under the ever-widening sky.
The sand clings to my feet,
then is washed away
in the tide’s haste
to kiss the shore,
only to recoil
when it tastes
the grit of life—
the ancient attraction-repulsion
born the moment
the first creature rose from the sea,
breathed, lingered
on the still, silent sand.
And I recall my mother’s lullaby,
a hushed song that once swayed the air,
telling of the slip that heard
Mother Ocean call—
no longer a command
but a longing,
a tide reaching, retreating,
pleading for what once was hers:
"Oh, dear sea-child of mine,
I weep when I hear
your quiet refusal—
you will not return
to my salt-bound embrace."
Her voice, low and wavering,
held the weight of salt-laden sorrow,
a plea stretched thin
like foam dissolving at the shore.
Each refrain a remnant,
each pause a hesitation—
as though waiting for me
to answer.
From behind and beyond,
the feelers of Calypso unfurl,
know of the colorfully dressed
streams that live in pastel houses—
my neighbors’ voices, celebrating on
the tarmac street, carving a clean
divide between sand and sea
and the subdivision’s order.
Not hands nor voices,
but motion and rhythms,
a swirl of sounds
pulsing under steel drums—
a force, a motion,
the sway of limbs,
a rhythm spilling from windows,
tugging my breath,
threading through the percussive air.
And yet, beyond the curb’s edge,
the tide still stretches,
its foamy fingers outstretched—
not grasping, not demanding,
just waiting—
lapping once, twice,
a quiet pulse returning
to the depths.
The wind gathers the tide’s sigh,
folds it into the music of the street,
lifts it beyond houses, beyond roads,
carrying the hush of salt and longing
farther than any wave could reach—
where, in the cooling night,
a trace of brine lingers in the air,
where the wind turns brackish,
faint as a whisper,
the ocean still breathing its call,
a whisper curling at the edge of sound,
the ocean still exhaling its call.
I see a conch shell in the glowing darkness,
pick it up, watch its pink body
retract into its protective shelf.
I feel awe at this tiny creature's ability
to deny my ear the simple desire
to hear the song of the ocean.
I drop it on the sand,
witness the tide kiss and cradle it.
For a moment, I stay still,
listening—
to the hush of salt and steel drum echoes,
to the tide’s patient pull
and the rhythms spilling through open windows.
Something shifts.
The pull of the tide is no longer stronger
than the pulse of the street.
I withdraw into the nacre of myself,
disappearing so far into the dark
that I vanish from the night’s sight.
Then, Calypso draws me to the block party.
In the haze of the streetlight,
I am the same size as all the other revelers—
no more or less significant than
anyone else in this vast sea of love.
