A Temporary Landscape

The shore is desolate, not empty
but something worse, littered
with dead things, debris, and flotsam
from a thousand storms,

all torn from its moorings,
tossed like leaves in an angry wind,
and left here, barely recognizable,
a landscape from hell with no end.

This is where old thoughts die.
washed up in the morning,
to be glimpsed at anew with your ancient eyes,
and washed out to sea again.

Despite appearances to the contrary,
this is not hell, or even purgatory,
it is a temporary landscape of things long gone,
and washed to sea, where they belong.

About this poem

Sometimes, we ruminate too much about the past. The sea has the right idea. Like breathing, it goes in, and out, changing the landscape with every wave.

Tom