Life’s Driftwood
                            by Odin Roark


Peering back at the shadow stretching,
continuance knows well the peaceful silhouettes from horizon's light,
ancestral sequences having frequented this shore many times.

All is as it has been on so many such occasions.

Sequestered driftwood blanketed by sand,
isolated fingers protruding in protest
remain unready to move on,
just yet.

Like sand pipers scavenging wet bubbles along the beach,
furtively runing zigs and zags,
avoid swooping wings overhead,
a termination they too are not ready to embrace,
just yet.

All is as it has been,
today’s modernity,
of the familiar rumble of distant truck engines,
downshifting for the long pull over the hill,
transporting essential goods of all kinds,
sustainment of another kind
for people not at the end,
just yet.

Destiny continues to lap the shore,
its gentle hands tugging
Nature's ancient endurance
into tomorrow’s warm waters.

So mighty…

This evolving limbed-strength,
accepting of wind and temperatures,
willing to ready again for the next leg of the journey.

White caps thunder applause,
as the elongated shade of remaining branches
fades into the day's dusk and disappears,
signaling a tide ready to lift
to carry forth and beyond,
for now.

The roots have withered,
growth's ever changing leaves and bark
have become love and loss morsels of existence,
Mixing peacefully as ghostly remnants,
until?

The water rises
the fiber and strands of resistance
soften to dissolve into a new connection
as birth's salt and brine prepare the next iteration…
the next surge upward,
a lift of wave and purpose
exploding its final power,
into a mist imploring remembrance
before the oneness of completion
cycles again into its new quintessence.

So begins another a circle of continuance,
the drifting of a tree we might meet again
beneath another shore's migrating sands,
readying still further preparation to unfold the stamina
of life’s essence. 

Such is the gift of time and space,
the requisite condition for permanence,
where existence once created
evolves unfettered in perpetuity.