Waiting for the Future

I wish to inhabit the silence between the laps of frosted waves,

Washing sorely trodden feet, the stinging abrasion of water on skin,

As I stand along the jagged edge, watching between closed eyes

The wheeling seabirds scurrying into the darkened west,

The land still shrouded in night, to which I must return my legs

Having wandered lengths of long avoidance, scrambling craggy

Rocks that rarely feel the greedy touch of human hands.  I wish

Sometimes to be these ferocious boulders, facing the fervent wind

For eons, watching fools return to aged fishing boats, not glancing

Once behind, but following the path of all rushing, fearful beasts, taking

Their past in one hand and their future in the other, gripping these ties

With unnatural strength, hoarding plans without offering a taste

Of the land in between, forgetting how to walk in an endless race.

But if you close your eyes, it almost feels as if nothing’s changed at all,

It almost feels as if I can ignore the burning feeling that we’ve been here before.

The repetitive dreams like warnings, I recall one night I thought

I’d lost a friend, so why did I never call, I never asked you if you were

Still there, the peculiar fear of the subconscious dissipating the moment

I awoke to follow the selfsame trail of yesterday, did you find yourself

In this gyre of nonsense, is that why you wanted to sleep until it tore

Your independent, smiling life apart, or was that always an illusion,

The mirage of childhood hopes like the imagined trips into the books

We shared, I only wish I called you one more time before you spun

Too far, would it change anything at all to pause and use your phone

For a conversation with more significance than petty thoughts of the instance,

I think it would make all the difference, because the long wait

For the future to begin tires us before we ever get there,

Because we live always too many steps ahead of ourselves,

So close your eyes to catch the sliver of a glimpse

Into that stasis at the seaside, changing towards nothing

More important than this second of yourself, nothing more vital

Than your life mingled with the heady scent of salt and silence,

I think the rocks tumbling over decades into the embrace

Of the churning water are far braver than you or me,

Brave enough to look forwards into their imminent

Plunge below the shoreline, yet never fearfully, forsakenly strive

For some more meaningful demise, they watch me leave their haven

With a knowing sympathy, I cannot help my humanity

I continue to return to my disheveled sanctity, to compel

My toes away from the caress of the soft spoken ocean,

Return to labors for an unknown future while ignoring the futile

Knock of the present on doors labeled Do Not Disturb, but once in a while,

Please Disturb, I am waiting only for the courage to live now

While any carefully constructed future waits for me.