For Sharon

When even life's most basic rhythms can't be taken for granted, we realize how tied we are to the rhythms of the universe, not just the waves but the tides.
In Tofino, on the windy ocean coast of British Columbia, Daddy's cane scratched into the sand, just at the tide's edge, "I don't believe in tide". And of course, true to the universe's insistent impishness, the water quickly swished his words into sandy sea. I see now, these years later, that what I thought was random unpredicability is more truly our own nearsightedness. Daddy teaches us that youth can see the waves, but it takes an old man to see the tides. And Sharon teaches us that all parts of life are......parts of life. Here's how I put it when I was younger, and closer to the waves.

I Don't Believe in Tide

The tide reminds us
that this universe
is not a constant;
can change,
draw back over noisy pebbles,
the white noise of waves
containing every possible
prophecy
and then, laughing,
change the rules.

The tide reminds us
when our shoes get too
comfortable
on dry familiar rock,
to laugh out loud
at the splashing, the soaking,
the unannounced shift
in what we once called land
or what we once called here
or what we once called
now

The tide mreminds us
that there is work to be done,
important work.

Can I ever trust
that without me here
the tide will still remember
to surprise me?

I don't believe in tide.
But it seems to believe in me.