Old Salt-

You used to love the ocean,

At least, I think you did

Before those times you went away, before those drunken sins

 

We went together once, I still remember well

That stoney look you gave the sea each salty, foaming swell

 

My mother told me when you were young that you would walk among the dunes 

How was she to know your love would soon abade, to meet a certain doom

 

Today I took you to that place again, a shore so sacred to me

Even now, I avoid the saddened truth, for no joy or pleasure

Is found for you in this sea

 

I stood alone in the clear, cold shallows

Trailing the wind blown ripples in the sand below

When the breeze razed children's castles to the ground

Crashing waves still tumbled, swallowing their own deafening sound

 

It was then against my mother's advice

That I turned my back to the ocean, trudging again

to your gelid vice

 

Expecting what I'm not sure

Certainly nothing nice

 

"Smile", you sneered 

"Act like you want to be here"

 

I nodded and wished that I could, 

But it was hard because now I knew

That your old salt love was no longer any good

 

It's for you I write this prayer

In hopes to rekindle your faith 

Recive ability to exalt in the beauty of such a chaste and lovely space

 

In the sand, I traced it with my fingers

Watched as the grains parted unto themselves

Thin, false trenches joined to form my plea 

 

Until the waves lapped it up

Engulfing these words now held secret only to the pebbles

and me