The Tide Left Behind

“What recedes does not vanish, it lingers in the sand, waiting to be found again.”

The tide had pulled back, leaving traces scattered across the shore. A broken shell, a tangled string of weeds, footprints pressed into damp sand, evidence that nothing ever truly disappears. What drifts away always leaves its mark, quiet but undeniable.

In the stillness of the season’s change, the tide seemed to mirror the way life pressed its echoes into unexpected places. A stranger’s story at a shop, a familiar voice on the phone, the uncanny way paths cross where they shouldn’t. Just as the water recedes, only to rise again, the people and moments we think have gone often return, different, altered, yet still carrying the imprint of before.

The tide left behind more than shells and silt. It left questions, reminders, and the uneasy knowing that what has gone out will always, in some way, come back in.

The water retreats, but it does not erase,

it leaves its memory upon the face

of stones and sand, of whispered ground,

where every echo waits to be found.

The tide withdraws with expression

what drifts away, leaves an impression.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And as the tide whispered its return, it was clear, what comes back does not arrive the same.

12 thoughts on “The Tide Left Behind

Leave a reply to Darryl B Cancel reply