Enough to Survive

Another beach in the off-season.
Not unlike the one yesterday. And the day before.
You take the same picture
in a different place. Wherever you go.
Photographs of space. Emptiness. Stillness.

Especially stillness.
Sand and sky at their most quiet.
The moment between tides.
Emptiness without loneliness.
Quiet.

You would not call yourself broken,
but certainly you have been.
Too broken too long.
That is never erased. Not completely.

You walk. It is still.
Unbidden you remember
the inevitable dissonance
that left you less than.
The noise. Life in conflict with itself
And the struggle to listen
and hear your own voice again,
and more to believe in it
despite the false evidence to the contrary.

You take another photograph.
There will never be enough of them.
Enough of this quiet. A reminder,
more in the taking than the looking later.
The reminder: This is who I am.
A creature in search of an elusive peace
Trying to take enough of it with me
to survive the journey
back,

About this poem.

There are places, like where I am right now, that bring me peace. That restore my spirit. Were there enough money, I would live in one of those places: Here. Venice. Half a dozen others. Content beyond words. I take pictures to remind me when I am not there. Sparks of the spirit of quiet I revere.

Tom