COASTAL VORTEX

sometimes i dream of the coast, the fountain of my youth, where the sky swells dark and heavy

and raindrops plop against the waves, each one gentle as a mother’s kiss

water reigns from above and below, dousing the world with a cool, sweet sheen—something like forgiveness, something like hope

something like a sweet, soft moment, or a miracle, or a memory that still stands out after all this time—too much time, yet no time at all

all must live and die; we know this, and our graves are dug for us whether we like it or not, with kicked up dirt piled up beside them as if from a dog looking to bury a bone, those holes in the ground waiting patiently for their time

people disappear from the earth, for all we know, but the water we share stays coursing, flowing, everlasting, pouring over it all—both the rocky and the smooth, nourishing the land, bathing it clean

with every opening of the sky, with every wave crashed along the shoreline, a new landscape is created; a new day has dawned

with each droplet, a lifetime; with each sip, a creation myth, a laugh of hysteria, a jolt of exhilaration—with each wave, a world within worlds, a godlike force, a balance of the scales

and yet the coast, in my memories of old, is not a cruel master nor a powerful god; it is magic, and it is peace and love like that of an estranged, faded being from the edges of our human understanding—invigorating and unforgettable

one could say the vast, endless seas could never quench our hunger, could never wash the filth from our skin, could never water our graves enough to satiate us before we lay in them

water cannot save us from death; we know this

it can only persist, the way we know it will, far beyond us, the way it existed long before we were born, and it will fall upon the faces of the youth, the next generation, and they will feel that magic all the same—

the cruel, liminal magic life has to offer, in such small, fleeting doses, with so little time to feel it, so that we doubt we ever felt it at all

even so, perhaps life is not the magic, the past, the worlds within worlds; perhaps life is the water we share, taste by taste, side by side, even as we war from opposite ends of the ocean, crashing against each other, creating futile ripples in our midst; we are still stuck in the sand, restrained by our seaweed bonds, wading waist-deep into it all

on my deathbed, perhaps i will think back to the coast

perhaps, before i close my eyes forevermore, i will dream of nature’s sweet caress around my ankles, the cold, gentle waves a soft probe against each skim of my fingertips, each touch a mystery to uncover—ethereal to contemplate, impossible to decipher

i will make my way through the ocean one last time before the clouds drift past the stormy sea, until my last breath leaves my lungs, until i am no more—until the earth itself feasts on all the ocean i hold

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