advent journal: waltz

when we lived by the ocean

I learned to tell time by the tides

(I guess I should say I couldn’t

tell time a thing — or keep it)

there was no second hand . . .

no sense of calendar —

just the giving and taking

away of the beach twice a day:

a waltz to the rhythm of the moon

on this spring tide of sunshine

and darkness, this longest night

I am mindful of what has washed

up and washed away on the beaches

of my heart, a waltz of my own

to the metronome of missing:

the giving and taking away —

the giving and taking away . . .

the giving and taking away.

Peace,

Milton