Ode to the road.

See you and your rivered mind.
Sought out in cyan.
And cry for the drift in your eye.
Made for.
The groove.
The tremolo in your pace.
Rose hue to your face.
And the sea to your shirt.
The one you got in Olympia.



Garrett Johnson.

too lovely
you were to stay for long,
instead
you left a tidemark on my walls,
a gentle swell and retreat I welcomed with delight and open arms
through the doors and windows,
awakened by the smell of salt and quiet happiness
and by your laughter in the waves.

And the little treasures hidden beneath,
the rocks and flowers bumping and rolling in the current
you left for me to find on the floor,
tiny keepsakes of a happy time,
reminding me
how sublime it is to float.

A broken heart one year on looks like
a life I'm quietly putting back together.
Stitching contentment and peace into
the lining of curtains that open onto new landscapes,
growing bold in solitude.

Loneliness is still a ghost in the corner
but these days he is more polite with his interruptions,
and I breathe in more oxygen than lonesomeness.

You still find me in the quiet hours and sometimes I give in,
sinking backwards in the surf and noise of lost love.
but these days I float more readily,
back to the surface.

Do you feel the pull away?
The crashing tides receding,
to run as tender rivulets along the beach
as if to say an inter-tidal goodbye to the shores

Back to the ocean
the water will run  my love,
a reminder of the times
the sea intermixed with sureness and the stones
only your shorelines could offer
a pelagic mind adrift.

Throw your line down
and sit with me below,
beside the cray pots and the fish.

remember the gifts the sea gave up
the rocks and stories that made their way into my pockets
for your indifferent hands to overlook on the windowsill.

Throw your line down
beside the ***** and tangled weeds,
and remember a single line
is not enough to tame an undertow
that sings arias to the moon.