Edge of Light

The tide forgets itself—

pulls back like breath before a word,

and I sit where ocean kisses

the hem of sand,

barefoot, still,

as if the earth remembered me.

Driftwood leans like old bones

bleached with waiting.

A gull calls once—then

only the hush of water

undoing itself

on the shore.

I do not move.

Not because I cannot,

but because this moment

holds everything:

the hush before the wave,

the weightless ache of watching

something unnameable

almost begin.

Sunlight fractures across the tidepools,

sends gold spirals into sea glass,

and for a breath

I feel the silence

lean forward.

Not empty—

but full of what might be.

My shadow,

soft and long behind me,

is quieter than the wind.

It touches dune grass,

the last feather of a crow's wing,

and vanishes

into the hush

we never learn to speak.

I think of memory

the way I think of light:

not as something I chase,

but something

that finds me

when I stop.

And here,

between the salt and sky,

the sea says nothing—

but I understand.