Published 13 years ago. Written perhaps 15 years ago.

Tide

The cleft that is the breath's brief span is spent;
the soft enfolding moment's music dies.
The cord drawn taut from mouth to ear is rent,
and you have wiped my sleep from out your eyes.
While much like music, ardor wanes and swells
with measures both of stillness and of tone,
I fear that every silent breath foretells
how at your core all sound of me is gone.
Though I may dry to dust I won't be blown
from off the sentinel branches of life's crux;
your name anoints the hollows in the bone
and sates with faith opinions still in flux.

Though clouds conceal the water from all sight,
you pull the ocean up the beach each night.