Driftwood

 

DRIFTWOOD 

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

I saw a log of driftwood, resting inland from the shore.

Some would call it detritus, but I would call it more.

I looked it over carefully and traced its deep etched lines,

The weather told a story of twists and turns and time.

 

The driftwood lay above the tides, but not beyond the winds,

For they had sent its body to a spot where life begins.

Around it there grew seedlings, and they fluttered in the breeze,

As if announcing here begins and ends a story of the seas.

 

I sat upon that driftwood log and listened to the waves,

 I thought about the lives it knew, and how many had been saved,

As it drifted miles away from home, and lifted up the lost,

Helping them embrace its hope when fear around them tossed.

 

Beyond the rocks and tidal reach, more driftwood could be seen,

Where others there before me had found a space to lean,

By building little monuments and shelters made from limbs,

Though none might last the winter in the face of biting winds.

 

Yet driftwood lets us come to rest on a temporary plot,

That tells a changing story showing nothing ever rots,

The cycle just begins again and memories abide,

In places where there’s shelter and life beyond the tide.