As I Sit At My Table

As I sit at my table Overlooking the sea I try not to look for its unforgiving blueness it is too much for my heart. My heart which is once again, empty. Loss has followed my heels for many years and it follows me still. As surely as the waves flow in and out again with the ebb tide. No more shall I look at the mountains their tips frosted with white surely, and no more the shells that I so carefully collected with my most secret self the part that was my own which I let be exposed for a small time... Came out into the shooting star sun with the driftwood even the grayness, the light rain... I picked them up held them tight took them home with me each an expression of something radiant and decorated the deck with their unique beauty Arranged them in a way which said most eloquently Here I am ... here are the parts of me for the world to sea for a while until sure as the water flows It was asked of my heart to toss them back and so I did. Into the greenish dryness, I tossed them Not where they go at all, it was wrong but into the thick brownish cover of trees for there were far too many of my shells by then They were too heavy they had become just a burden. The very action itself left a scar on my heart that could not easily be fixed nor would it ever but it must be done Always in the past when asked to do something that felt a trespass against my soul, an action which hurt so very much and went against rather than with my own tide... meant something was coming which would surely damage me A storm which would rage and which would tear pieces of me apart The shells were just fragments of myself anyway but the innermost fragments of myself which I had collected when I felt like sharing at times when I sparkled even on gray days In the glittering sun In the light gray rain but sure as the ebb tide brought them in they would go out again maybe not as I would have liked but broken and damaged. Surely as I had brought them in from the beach they could not stay as my heart, dark and riddled with loss must have its due as I sit at this table alone and yet unable to look at the water not to look at the mountains and not to hear the birds sing