Rising Tide
As I walk along waters edge
swallows welcome me with joy
darting, swerving, encircling.
I walk on reflect and pray as they pirouette
in ocean’s air skimming above the waves.
An aged walker of these shores
stops greets me,
points to the water and says,
“The river is a mirror yet I watch
a feather flow against the rising tide.”
Her words delicately awakens my eyes.
I follow oyster catcher tracks in sand
across the tidal shore
each imprint casts a shadow
till they too end at land’s edge;
crumbling sands fashioned by the ebbing tide.
I hear shags wings slap estuarine waves
look out at the power of long haired seas
breaking on shoals of broken shells
bearing the weight of waves.
My mind’s eye rolls across the ocean
unimpeded by what comes its way till it breaks
upon shoals of broken thoughts
yoked to presumptions’s moon
that fails to pull a rising tide
offers up instead a dead ebb.
I pause.
Watch the rising tide,
feather broken thoughts
bathed in prayer:
Ìosa Crìost,
let the Spirit hovering over a rising tide
bathe the blindness of my mind’s eye with clay
and weave a trace of uncreated light
unveiling the depth of human-being
incomplete within, waiting to become
fashioned into the image of Criost.
Mar sin bitheadh.
© Craig A Roberts, 2025
Scots Gaelic Terms:
An Geadh Fiadhaich: The Wild Goose poetic name of the Holy Spirit, untamed by humanity.
Ìosa Crìost: Jesus Christ
Mar sin bitheadh: So let it be.
Photo: AdobeStock/ Author
