This Shore

I know this water.

Not by its color
or what it reflects,
but by the way it holds the day
even after the sun has gone.

I’ve stood here before,
at this same edge,
watching the light settle into it
as if it were something kept.

There’s a smell to it
you don’t notice at first.
Salt, yes,
but also something older,
caught in the rocks.

The shore is never still.
Even when it looks that way,
something is always moving
just under the surface.

I’ve come here at different times,
with different thoughts,
and it has taken all of them
without comment.

That’s part of it.

It doesn’t ask
who you are when you arrive.
It doesn’t remember you
when you leave.

Still, I return.

Not for answers.
There aren’t any here.

But for the way it steadies me
without trying.

For the sound
that goes on
whether I listen or not.

For the sense
that something larger than me
can hold its shape
without needing mine.

I stand a while,
long enough for the light to change,
long enough to feel
that I’ve been here before.

Then I go.

It remains.