Pauses in the Tide

A Poem

Image by Pok Rie from Pixabay

Time moves like the tide,

pulling forward, never still.

A restless thing, carving the shore,

etching moments into sand

only to wash them away.

But here, barefoot in the golden dusk,

laughter tangled in the salt air,

fingers tracing idle lines in the earth,

time loosens its grip.

The waves rise and break,

roaring like a world too vast to hold,

then retreat.

A hush, a pause, a breath,

a fleeting silence before it rushes again.

And in that quiet, between the crashes,

we are untethered.

We are not past or future,

not bound to clocks or fading light.

Just here, just now.

Joy lingers in the spaces between,

in the warmth of a lover’s touch,

in the glimmer of a friend’s knowing smile,

in the hum of something simple, something whole.

The tide will pull, the moments will slip,

but for now, for this breath,

we are weightless, endless,

held in the hush between the waves.