MEDITATION AT THE BEACH

Low tide turning, an opalescent pool,
A hidden rock garden grown unseen.
Who am I you ask, and how many are we?
I know only myself as I've always been...

Then exposed once more at lowest tide,
I glimpse a world unseen inside,
And hide; My senses reel.
It is ever so familiar to not know, or see, or feel.

(An anemone retracts from touch,
And I choose not to know than know too much.)

Why would I wish to see my solid shore may be
But a pale reflection of a child's reality?
I doubt the dolphin wonders if its world is upside down,
Yet the pain inside is an ocean in which my soul could drown.

A turning tide once more defies,
Washing ancient sorrow across silver sands.
Salt water stings another's eyes,
A solitary waif is holding out her tiny hands.

(A crushed and broken shell that lies,
Unnoticed in the sand.)

One shields my awareness from this child who isn't me,
Yet still her presence lingers.
I would have thought her right to be
As silent as the sands of time now sifting through my fingers.

Was she once me - that frozen child who pounds her fists against my chest?
Does the rock feel the waves that swell relentlessly without rest?
But the sky filled with sunlight is now warm on my face.
And the child shall have her birthright; her rightful place.

Someone must believe she was meant to be.
As surely as the azure sky.
As surely as the sea.
Someone believes she was created to fly.
Perhaps it is you. Or perhaps, after all, it is I

 

 

 

Copyright © Elysha Newland 1997