By: Linda M Crate

the soft whisper
of my voice
is like a rustling of leaves
people are always
trying to talk over me with the
roars of their ocean,
but they do not tend to their birds
that’s always something
left for me to do;
but i am done carrying bones that are
not mine—
i will return them to the oceans that they claim
to be
allow the sharks to devour their blood and
watch the sea salt all their sorrows
as they have done mine,
but i will not laugh;
for the destruction of dreams is always a saddening,
maddening thing and i want to see them
clawing for the sunlight
as the anchors
of their grief
pull them back downward toward the ocean depths
where creatures of ancient can forever ask them
all the questions they would never answer for
me.