The Tide

An Allegorical Poem by Sara da Encarnação

Photo by HighZone on Unsplash

The Tide

by Sara da Encarnação

It comes before it knows it is coming;
a long slow lean of water toward the land,
as though the sea had heard of something there
and could not keep from answering.
It arrives with such certainty of hands.
It takes the shells the storm left open,
the dark wet sand that held the shape of herons,
the quiet pools the morning had arranged.
It fills itself with all of it.
The gull’s cry before the gull is done with it.
The noon light resting on the water.
The shadow the cliff made at three.
The patience of things that waited...
urchin,
anemone,
stone.
Everything enters the body of the tide
for a little while.
And still it reaches farther.
Past the line of stones.
Past the roots of grasses.
Past the place where the land forgets
it was ever separate from the sea.
As though there were something there
that had been overlooked before.
As though distance itself
might finally surrender it.
But a tide cannot keep.
This is not tragedy.
It is simply the shape of water.
Having arrived,
it begins already to leave.
The shells return to their shore.
The shadows return to their cliffs.
The light returns to whatever place
light goes when evening comes.
Everything slips from it
without resistance.
The way a dream slips from a waking hand.
The way a name slips from a mouth
that almost remembered.
And the shore keeps nothing either.
Only the dark line where the water turned.
Only the mark of how far it came.
Tonight it will return.
Certain as ever.
Gathering the same shore.
Crossing the same distance.
Reaching again toward something
just beyond where it reached before.

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