The Birth of Loss

The silence came mostly between the tides –

in the deep tranquil moments

of gently lapping water

the occasional leaping perch;

between the low chime of bells,

murmured chants on wind.

The silence was carried

upon a strange ripple of rhythm:

the noticeable absence of gulls.

They were blessed that spring with solitude

and the sort of thick vibrant sunsets

expected from summer,

when the last pulsing glow

sears the day closed

with abrupt gentleness –

snap awake and it's dusk.

She told him she woke

with a cry at the whisper of the screen,

the rustlings of sudden loss;

that he slumbered and slipped,

murmuring her name

as the crash of waves

caressed them with its sad lunar pull.

It was as if they had ceased being,

returned to their imagining;

as if they still drifted in the flow,

in her tidal estuary.