Stepping Stones

Islands in a cold blue sea: sheets of water press against them like a thousand hands. Rocks catch salt-spray within their cracks. What does the sea desire? It gives shape to these double hills, whose rise and fall form the pattern of a wave, the slump of a shoulder, the pulsing of a heart.

Perhaps this is why we are drawn to them, why they beckon us from the farther shore. A kind of emptiness draws one on. We feel them within us before we ever touch their cliffs.

Evening bends the light. Colors deepen. And the islands coax you into their arms.