There are voices that never raise themselves. They do not ask, they do not insist. They keep arriving, and in the end they return what we have offered them. The sea is one of them.
The sea that counts the days
has never once complained of time.
It takes the morning tide
the way you take an open hand,
holds it close for an hour,
and gives it back without reproach.
I have tried, too, to count.
I laid my hours on the sand,
they slipped, I chased them,
counted them again, and by evening
a single stone was always missing.
So I watched the sea do it.
It does not count, it breathes.
It does not keep, it welcomes.
It does not promise, it returns.
And this morning, though I had not earned it,
a wave paler than the others
rolled in to my bare feet
with something I had not yet named —
a small steadiness,
a little peace,
the taste of salt after one has finished weeping.
I have not understood all of it.
But I stay here, attentive,
the way the sea is, the way an old friend is,
the way a door remains
that no one has shut.
Time is not taken from us; it is lent. And whatever is lost along the way — the hours, the names, the seasons — is not stolen; it is handed to the sea, which transforms it into low light, into high tide, into that small shiver of dawn that reminds us we are still alive. No one asks us to hurry. We can breathe. We can come back. We can sit at the edge of the water and say nothing. Perseverance, sometimes, looks just like that: not holding on at any cost, but trusting that the next tide will, in time, arrive.
