Eternal Tides, Finite Hearts

We’re melding our hearts together,
on a bed of molten gold, staring
into the night sky speckled with
silent witnesses of our love,
which beam upon us like delicate pearls
embroidered in the night’s velvety embrace.
On one side, chiseled, foam-kissed cliffs, drowning
layers of a raging mind
like a violent ballet; on the other, sea
and silence, then a crash, a roar, some
calm whorls and cicadas of currents,
and in the distance, the rise of the sea’s daunting
sigh and the moan it makes.
In solemn reflection on a conversation
we had last night while lying on beach grass,
he says, “Love is a tempest, wild and untamed.”
Yet it beckons like a quiet ache,
a slow burn. The stifling, salty air
encompasses us. We embrace it. Turtles
brush against our feet, and the night deepens
like the sea’s moaning wail, a salty
baptism of passion and surrender. The air trembles.
Far ahead, the moonlight paints pale
lilac beams. “Forever,” he says,
though mortality’s reminder quakes in
the deep crash of ocean waves and
makes him shudder amidst the tepid air. Around us,
and our warm embrace, the sea swells,
salt-stained. Beyond us, shadows cling to the edges
of truth and reality. As much as we love,
infinite tides don’t bind us.