Sands in the hourglass
To the seagulls,
It is just another day,
Whitewashed in seas of gray,
A monochromatic palette,
A square of paint
In the loosely interwoven fabric of days.
Shadows are like stones,
Heavy on the sand,
Smooth as glass,
In which we see reflections
Of monotony
From which we long to break,
Waiting to reclaim
Freedom,
The kind of bliss
Known by the gulls,
Moving with the steadiness of the tide,
The currents of the wind,
And the rays of sun
That bear witness
To the birds of the beach,
Plovers, on spindly toothpick legs,
Run from the waves
Scattering like seeds,
Beads of salt among the pepper of rocks.
The sea stirs the spirit within,
Flames of expectation
For the blessings that await.
No matter the time,
Every day alive
Is a gift.
The ocean leaves its oblations,
In sea glass and shells,
Always something new,
A memory to collect.
To water
You, so sinuous, mysterious,
Familiar, and yet strange,
Intangible, though still part of us,
Known intimately,
Dreamed of, thirsted for,
Though transcending
What our earthly understanding allows,
Snaking through our fingers,
Never staying put,
Nomadic as the roving sun
Who takes the whole sky as her home,
Adapting to anything.
Sometimes you seem to conform,
Fitting to the molds in which you are placed,
Such are the states of matter,
Following rules of chemistry,
Dancing to the music set by kinetics,
You bottle your own energy,
As though lightning could ever be contained,
As though thunder could be silenced;
I’ve known you to rebel anyway.
Fitting to any shape,
You know what it is to be confined,
In cups and jars, glasses and goblets,
Vessels of your discontent,
Restraint and frustration,
Sometimes you rise up,
Sloshing against the walls of a mug,
Tasting freedom, escape,
In the air above,
Before you are capped,
A rock obscuring the light in the tunnel.
You draw your mark into the dirt,
Carving words
Where there once were not,
When you refuse to conform
You make a new trail,
Hugging the earth,
And we follow the path you’ve made,
Walking beside you, with you,
Listening to your constant rhythms,
The voice of the river,
Ocean, creek, tide and stream,
No longer jarred or bottled,
Stopped
Like a cork in wine.
You long to take action,
Making things just and right,
Not remaining silent,
But burbling and whispering,
Always communicating.
You are a source of life,
A tributary of the inner spirit,
That teaches us to keep moving,
Forward.
Kathryn Sadakierski’s writing has appeared in ActiveMuse, Critical Read, DoveTales, Halfway Down the Stairs, Literature Today, NewPages Blog, Northern New England Review, Origami Poems Project, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Spillwords, The Abstract Elephant Magazine, The Decadent Review, The Voices Project, Visual Verse, and elsewhere. Her work is forthcoming in Auroras & Blossoms, Capsule Stories, Inkwell Literary Magazine (BLC), seashores: an international journal to share the spirit of haiku, and Yellow Arrow Journal.
©2020 Kathryn Sadakierski
All rights reserved
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