/poems/where-the-river-meets-the-sea
WHERE THE RIVER MEETS THE SEA
There is a place where the river meets the sea
where different waters mix,
the currents clash and swirl,
the fresh and salty whirl,
and what lives in one cannot live in the other.
The sand and the mud become
a different colour, two become one
with turmoil, with tumult,
and swimming there is fraught with danger,
in this place I am a stranger
for only the strong might survive
the confluence of the tide.
Yet…I am not drowning.
I am the swimmer who must be strong
to traverse, to carry on,
to cross the mixing tides and shifting sands,
to discover, without you, just exactly who I am.
There are days when the tears will not cease.
There are days when I can fully smile,
and sometimes I feel guilt for the longest while,
I know not if my thoughts are only for myself.
There are times when I recall a moment in the sun
or something we had done,
and I laugh out loud or I scream and shout,
but you are not there to fall about beside me.
And again I wonder what my feelings be,
because like that place,
where the river meets the sea,
where the silt and the salt belong,
where the gentle meets the strong,
where the graceful flow meets the tide,
nothing felt can hide away,
everything is on display
and being churned together.
Tossed and turned forever.
Sucked down, spewed out.
Yet…I am not drowning.
Where the river meets the sea,
the swirling delta muck becomes one,
a food chain has begun,
for the unseen life far below the surface.
So, somehow I too am being fed
some kind of wisdom from the murky bed,
some kind of strength,
some kind of something I can’t really say
to sustain me for my days.
Days I cannot yet picture in my mind,
as every day since you went,
have no memory, no colour, and no shine.
There are times I feel I have no quarter,
when I am so tired of treading water,
I could let myself tilt,
sink below the surface to be the salt and silt,
and dissolve in to the muck and disappear.
At that moment I can feel you near,
so I bring my head above the waves,
and like the river boat, I keep afloat,
with memories I have saved.
Here I am, here is me,
where the river meets the sea,
swimming strong, and swept along,
at the mercy of the delta of my heart.
Churning, silt and salt, tearing me apart.
Yet…I am not drowning.
