The Shore’s Long Breath

The tide is a silver rasp, filing the edges of the continent, turning the basalt’s resolve into a fine, grey sleep.

Here, the salt is a ghost that settles in the hollows of driftwood, whitening the bones of old pines that once leaned toward the swell.

I watched the water take a name, a word written in the wet grit, and carry it down to the kelp-dark, leaving only the cold, rhythmic echo.

There is a music in the shrinking shore, the percussion of stones rolling in the surge, a slow, blue surrender to the deep lungs of the world.