A LOW TIDE VALE.

i built a raft out of our arguments,

paddled in my own assurances,

through waters ill and tempers flared

to reach the island i designed.

and there i sat all the while

singing "chase me! find me! watch me go!"

under the suns of Once Before,

and beneath the moons of Long Ago.

i found such sorrow

when no ripples appeared

in the lakes and ravines

and you never came.

"its too much!" you called

from waters edge,

"i cannot swim 

such distances!"

"but you used to!" i would cry,

eyes red and hands alight,

"when i was your mermaid,

and you the fair sailor,

whose sweet autumn eyes

scanned all the ocean blue

and said he'd never found

a love like mine!"

and your words, they skip

like fireflies

with broken wings

and dying lights,

"darling,

you are but a siren,

how can i pretend

you are a mermaid still?"

so quietly i shall sit

under every sun and

every moon

and miss the man you were

while i mourn the woman

i thought i was.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i remember a relationship when there were so many battles...and then always she would come to talk so we could make up. But one day, she stopped coming and the "we" stopped existing.
j.

[Michael Sun Bear]

Emunah, I don’t wish to sound cruel, but in the right person a broken heart can sure inspire great art! I feel a little guilty finding my own joy in reading of your sorrow. I think this poem is brilliant and it’s going in my Favorites library. MSB

[RomaJ]

Emunah, this poem is beautiful and poignant. I love how the water imagery, the raft of arguments, the tides, and the unreachable island captures longing and distance. The speaker’s call to “chase me, find me, watch me go” shows desire, yet the impossibility of keeping up. Sometimes love means letting go when someone cannot follow, even if it hurts. The mermaid and sailor metaphor captures a love that was magical but ultimately impossible and the grief of losing both the other person and the version of oneself in that love.