Tidal Pull.wav

Tidal Pull
by Scott Alan Simpson

He does not feel the fire.

Only the faint pull of a memory of mud and rain. And the wonder that he is dry and clean.

He doesn’t feel the waves.

Only the boat, his boat, steady and sure beneath his back. And the smell of pitch.

On the shore someone is wailing. Someone is calling out a name he almost remembers.

It is gone.

Only the song his mother sang when wolves howled at night and the taste of copper hung heavy in the air.

Did he feed the pigs? Was the gate shut? Were his people safe? Is it…

Who was speaking?

And why am I still wearing my boots? We leave behind what we do not need. And is that me on the shore, alone, pierced with iron and soaked in blood? If it be, leave it behind and say to the fish ‘here is one on me!’

Only the sea. Only the sky. Only the breath between a birth and a death in blood and agony… I waited for the sun in vain. Lying eye of God, where were you when crops died and children starved? Did another world catch your eye in the market? Are YOU a child?

Are you a child? And do I hear you weeping? I might do more harm than good. I was never soft or kind. But are you crying? Are you lonely too?

Lonely God-Child, do not fear the night. For I am with thee. I do not feel the fire or the waves. Only you in my arms. Quiet now…

And on the shore, the last light fades of a boat on the water. They stand.

Bitterly defiant in their unending Autumn.