Folded

As we stand there / balanced precariously on the steep bank / every slight shift sending stones cascading onto the mud below / as we stand there / the tide moves in / not in hesitant steps or overlapping waves / but instead as a single surge / coursing ever further up the vast flats / the stones tumbled by our feet disappear as a small river grows / as we stand there it creates an island / as the raised ground is isolated from our shore / a silver gleam of water / bright as the clouds above /  a thin thread decorating the edge of a cloth / a spidery line of ink along the edge of the drawing / mapping an unseen topography / gradually growing out of focus as pigment seeps into the grain / a border on the abstracted gestures of sand and mud / and as we stand there the island is submerged by the tide / formed then destroyed in a matter of minutes / how many times has this pattern played out / rocking backwards and forwards over a pivotal moment of existence / as the landscape shifts every few hours / rewound as the tide withdraws / a landscape of mud and of turbulent water / existing separately yet simultaneously / how often do we exist in these overlapping places / that change by the hour or the decade or the pull of the moon / or the whim of a far removed entity / how often do they forget to change back / and as we stand there we notice / that muscle memory has deserted us / as we face a landscape that has morphed / in a thousand interlocking stages / into a place that is now unfamiliar / transfigured beyond return / we grip to some unrefined ledge of memory / and we can no longer feel our way home

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