Return to Me

Once again, you find yourself barefoot,
toes buried in eroded stone, your steps
hesitant, sinking. You stand at the edge
of your island, listening to my breathing,
the crash and retreat, the regular shingle
sigh, the dance of a million small particles
rearranging themselves in new patterns.
The sun is already setting, elongating
your shadow, making me shimmer gold and
jewel tipped. You breathe in my salt air.

Once again. you have found your feet uncertain,
untethered to the land you live in. You have
been drifting like morning mist, over footpaths
and stiles, your destination unclear. You have
been translucent, with ill defined borders.
So you find yourself in front of me,
walking forwards as wind ripples your chest.
I am cold but you stay anyway. I can feel
each small leg hair standing surprised.

Let me take your burdens, the ones you have carried
for so long now without realising. As you
wade further in, let me hold your intrusive
thoughts, your vague worries. Let me wash
the soil and land from your skin. Float now.
Lie on your back, starfished. Float.
Forget all the regular thoughts and patterns
you loosely define as a self. Let them drift,
become diffuse and bob towards the horizon.
Float now, forgetting who or where you are.

Once again the sun sits and light fades.
Once again you have to pull your limbs
together, become something like a person,
define the boundaries of your being.
Of course, you can’t stay here forever.
Once again, you pull on wrinkled cotton,
shock of small scratches over skin.
With a sigh, I regift your problems to you,
not solved, but buffed clean and polished,
shining smooth glass. Return to me
with anything you wish to bring
more into light, anything you wish to define.
I will be waiting here, lapping the land,
speaking in susurrations to the sandstone and the shore.