POETRY

To Have, to Hold

Ekphrastic free verse after Nick Cave

Image by Austin Schmid on Unsplash

You pass yourself
on the long walk,
on the fade of the strand,
an old heart splitting
and it feels like a dawn
unbounded as ocean
a body moving past the skin

You thought you dreamed
of this place you were born
where the stars meant more
than distance and height
than what you could hold,

you lived their dimensions
…for a time,
to light your blazing core

you gathered sea-glass
…for a time,
such gems you released again

Your now heart sore and splintered,
the ebb from your lips pullled
the gravity of unreturned,
the tides of walking solo
and the tides of someone’s hand

The keyholes you sought
in every stone, star and eye
still open when you look in,
when the heart abides
of the ache of your outgrowing