Crab Song

it's been like this always--me, coming here to watch the waves roll pebbles and shells onto this wide white stretch of sand, forming constellations that glitter beneath daylight's golden touch

and always i wonder, if some secret message from you lies encrypted in those jeweled patterns, all too soon snatched away by the imperious sea, as if begrudging me of such beauty and the day when i'd figure out the secret and find a new direction to pursue--other than this realm of sand, sun, and sea

and you: elusive in the circle of my reach like brine in the breeze, the moon spilled on the pitch-black waters, the foamy tongue of the sea kissing the beach

here i am, trapped in your silence, a crab sentenced to a shell. i know i shall bear the weight of this lover Solitude, of this protection and incarceration, of forever wishing these crimson shards would never again form the sun as leaving me to myself in this place leaves me with nothing but darkness and space and chasms falling into themselves

i shall dwell in the tales spun of what could have been us, written by a grieving hand and a dreaming heart on this wide white stretch of sand

what must i do to rouse you from your sleep? i am nothing but the script that scars this shore, droning of how the wind endlessly ruffles the leaves of the trees, how the wild geese keeps screaming in search of home

when will the unseen hand draw over all of this the roaring blanket of sea and hush the cries of my soul to sleep?