Arizona Sunrise

New Year

The Clock

Kaleidoscope

Crows

God's Work

Eulogy for a Little Lab Mammal

Moment of Spirit

Storm Watch

Mother's Day

Sufficiency

Between Seasons

The Healing Moment

Marsupial Shell

Father's Day

Love Songs

Words

The Survivor

The Unaccompanied Mile

Approach to Summer

Ghost in the Orchard

The Changing Season

Fragment of Freedom

Calm Soul

Autumnal Invitation

A Trilobite Poet

Invocation

Conker Time

Moon Prayer

The Pebble

Meditation for Marjorie

Letting Go

And Let the River Answer

Untried Wings

All Is Dukkha

Footprints

Sacrifice

Reflections on a Painting by Andrew Wyeth

The Call

High Tide, Low Tide

High Tide, Low Tide

The bay at high tide is an invitation. It calls and I follow, falling into the chill wet blanket of motion and mystery. "Put down your face and stretch out," it sighs. "Relax, the element is friendly. Swim out to the raft and fill up your ears; hear the throb of the ocean massaging the land. Experience the momentary panic of salt water in your nose and mouth; go on, it's here for you." The bay at high tide is a sparkle of fiberglass and a slapping of halyards; it's a rolling, relentless sucking at the shore and uneasy toeholds on the backs of unseen sea creatures.

But at low tide the sand is strewn with the waves' forgotten favors. I stand, abandoned like one of the empty shells, staring out beyond the horizon where the water receded, where I cannot follow. Low tide is for reflection and acceptance. I do not belong to this water world after all. I long to wriggle into the muddy sand and shoot out tiny fountains like the clams, but I cannot. I can only stare into the pools from the salt-spray-softened surface of the beached raft and let memories bathe me. There is a time for high tide-being involved and active, taking risks, and putting out effort to master the elements-and there is a time for low tide-inactivity and quiet reflection-and both are necessary in our lives. May this be a low-tide time for you, when you can hear the voice of your own calming and thought-ful inspiration, a time when thoughts come uncalled for to comfort or challenge you; and may you go from here renewed and ready to answer the call of your destiny, to jump back into the tide of life once more.