Guiding Light

As I crest the back of each arching swell,
I see you wink,
as your loving light guides me nearer.

Each flash a whispered promise
that no matter how far I wander,
you will always remember
the way back home.

In the troughs where the night closes over me
and the sea tries to erase every landmark,
your beam still finds my face—calm, unhurried,
certain.
It does not scold the distance I have traveled;
it simply waits,
turning the black water into a path
I can still believe in.

When at last my anchor finds the harbor floor,

I realize it was never the shoreline
I was searching for...
Only the light
that had been waiting for me all along.