Popham in October

The beach is quieter now.
Summer has slipped away
like a gull lifting off without a sound.

Only the steady pulse of the Atlantic remains,
a heartbeat older than anything I know.
I sit where the tide curls in,
letting the cold sand hold me
like an old friend.

The lighthouse across the river
blinks its slow reassurance,
a tired guardian
still doing its best.

I think about all the versions of me
that have walked this shoreline—
laughing, grieving, rebuilding—
and how the ocean never judged,
only returned,
again and again,
to meet me where I stood.