Sometimes a place will promote feelings that need to be written and poetry is the way I can best express feelings whether it is joy or melancholy. Walking a lonely beach in the Pacific Northwest, I imagined a woman with regrets trying to find her way to forgiveness.

Salt Kisses

I walk the stony beach
As day fades
Thoughts of you grow ever stronger.
Aching heart and leaden feet
Move me forward.

Sorrow clutches my heart.
I look back with longing
To better days.
Briny breezes fill my lungs
Leaden with a murky future.

I can do nothing
But walk barefoot,
Kicking up the sand,
Stumbling with swollen eyes raised
To red-stained sunset skies

I can do nothing
But breathe the snatching wind,
Enfolded by pastel clouds.
Air as prayer,
A gossamer thread to forever.

I can do nothing
But swing a bare leg into the surf,
Glide my feet over slick rocks
At the edge of the world,
Stand with arms outstretched to the rising moon.

In the presence of this beauty
Regret and grief begin to ebb
The water knows me
Waves leap to brush my lips
With salty kisses

The water calls me
To wade in luminous moonlight.
My legs sting with salt
As your tears stung my lips
When I left.

I watch water’s foam-tipped strokes
Fade from the sand,
Then reappear.
With the next curling wave
I sense resurgence.

You are my water.
As I fade you replenish me.
Your curling waves caress and revive me.
I am sorry for my future transgressions.
I know how much you love me

By how fast you forgive me.

This poem was published last year in a slightly different version in the book Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets written by Jackie Collins, Sally Showalter, and me. The book is a collaborative memoir and compilation of stories, essays, and poems written during our twenty-five years as a writers group. It is available in paperback and digital versions through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.