Dangerous Places

You sit
in the sand,
your mind lost
in dangerous places,
punctuated by the music
of waves and wind,
not watching, barely aware
of the beautiful shoreline
that surrounds, until, with one
cold lap, the rising tide finds your feet
and you are brought back to now, and move
up the shore, out of waves way, high on the dunes

where again, you enter your reverie, and the ocean
becomes noise, theme music for a mind slowly
seeping away, like the tides, finding a zenith
of madness before slipping back into sanity
like a familiar shirt, long lost, suddenly
discovered in the back of a drawer,
so comfortable it makes you
cry in joy. A smile warms you
while the winter wind
cuts futilely against
your joy, and you
notice the tide
has gone out
again

and the sea
is far out of reach.
You get up and walk
to the water. You are done
with sitting. Today you will move
with the tides, dance with them
and wait for the moon to cut through your darkness
to the light beneath your skin, the light beneath your scars.

About this poem

Thems your choices. To let life cover you, to keep it at a distance, or to dance along with it. I’ve done all three. Dancing’s best.

Tom