Author: Kerri Elizabeth

A Quiet Refrain

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Some truths do not shout, they return softly, again and again, until they are heard.”

The season had grown quieter, but silence was never truly empty. It carried a refrain, repeating in unexpected ways, through a name overheard in passing, a story unfolding in a stranger’s voice, a meeting that seemed too precise to be coincidence.

The echoes no longer came from loud gatherings; they rose instead from subtler places. The forest trail, where a branch broke at the exact moment a thought arrived. The phone ringing with news that linked one life to another in ways no one could have planned. The refrain was not a song, it was a persistence, a reminder that some truths will keep circling back until we finally face them.

Every pause seemed to hum with what wasn’t said. In the quiet, the refrain was louder than ever.

Softly it comes, again, again,

a whisper threading through the plain.

No shout, no cry, no storm to send,

just truth repeating without end.

What will not fade returns in kind,

a quiet refrain that bends the mind.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And as the refrain lingered in the air, the question grew, was it just an awareness or an invitation to listen more closely?

The Tide Left Behind

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“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.

When the Wild Calls in the Dawn

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Morning carries its own storm, if you rise early enough to hear it.”

The dawn arrived differently now. No boats cut across the cove, no voices spilled into the night. Instead, the wild called in quieter ways, through the rustle of branches, the sudden flight of birds, the faint sound of footsteps where no one was seen. Rising early meant stepping into a world not yet touched by noise, a world that belonged to whispers.

It was here, in the sharp edge of morning air, that the echoes carried differently. Not from parties or crowded lawns, but through chance meetings, phone calls, and unexpected threads that tied lives together. The wild had not left with summer; it had shifted shape. It lingered in the forest paths, in the way names surfaced in conversations, in the way strangers became mirrors of something known.

The dawn had its own wildness, one that could not be seen but only felt, an undercurrent moving through silence, promising that what waits just beyond will always find a way to return.

The dawn does not rise in silence,

it whispers beneath the trees,

breath of shadows bending low,

calling through the leaves.

Wildness wears a softer face,

a chill across the skin,

a whisper where the world begins,

a storm that stirs within.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And as the morning deepened, the call grew sharper, as if the wild was waiting to reveal something hidden in the stillness.

Gathering of Week Four

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Every ending leans into a beginning, though the shape of it waits in silence.”

The week left its imprint across the cove, circles spreading on the water, shadows stretching thin, storms remembered in silence, and the quiet work of rebuilding. Each day felt like an echo of the one before, carrying truths further than anyone expected.

The voices of summer gatherings have dimmed. Lawns trimmed, boats pulled in, jet skis gone silent. Even in stillness, the air has its own weight, thick with the unspoken, alive with the sense that something always waits at the edge.

Every ripple, every whisper, every shadow was part of a larger story unfolding, not yet finished. And though the week has closed, the echoes remain, pressed into the silence, reminding us that waiting is never empty, it is a prelude.

Circles widen, shadows stay,

storms retreat, yet truths delay.

Rebuilding hums in quiet tones,

stillness breathes through broken stones.

The week has passed, yet nothing ends,

silence bends, and silence sends.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And as the veil of summer falls, the question lingers, when the next season rises, will it bring rest, or reveal what silence has been holding back?

Waiting

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Stillness is never empty, it is a pause before the next unveiling.”

The cove was hushed now. No boats cut across the water, no voices carried into the night. Only the hum of insects and the faint shift of branches filled the air. Waiting had its own weight, heavier than noise, heavier than storms. It pressed against the chest like a truth not yet spoken.

Every step across the lawn, every glance toward the shore felt watched, though no one was there. In waiting, even the air feels alive with questions. It isn’t silence that unsettles, it’s the sense that something is gathering just beyond it.

In waiting, silence leans to hear,

the trace of whispers drawing near.

The air is thick, the night is long,

the heart repeats a muted song.

What’s held at bay will one day break,

and shift the stillness in its wake.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And when the waiting finally ends, will it arrive softly, or split the silence wide open?

A Quiet Rebuilding

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“What falls apart teaches the silence how to begin again.”

The shoreline no longer echoed with parties or engines. Lawns were trimmed, flowers clipped, boats pulled in one by one. The cove seemed emptier, though in its emptiness, a different kind of sound began and quieter, steadier, like the whisper of things piecing themselves back together.

There was no announcement, no grand return. Just the slow work of repair: a chair moved back under the porch, a light left on in the evening, a conversation spoken softly enough to stay contained. What was torn open by storms and shadows began to find its way into a quieter shape, though not without the reminder that everything carries its cost.

Boards reset where waves had worn,

hands rebuild what storms had torn.

Quiet hums where chaos slept,

promises whispered, silence kept.

Rebuilding comes not loud, but slow,

a softer edge to what we know.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

Yet even in rebuilding, silence never stays empty for long, the next echo always waits just beyond reach.

After the Eye

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Even calm carries the memory of the storm.”

The storm had passed, or so it seemed. Branches lay scattered across the shoreline, reminders of winds that tore through with little warning. The air was strangely still, too still, as if the cove itself held its breath. In the eye’s quiet aftermath, nothing moved, yet everything remembered.

Neighbors drifted back to their routines, but the silence between them said more than their words. The pause after chaos was never empty; it was full of everything no one dared to name.

After the eye, the silence stays,

broken branches, forgotten days.

Calm deceives, but truth remains,

etched in whispers, etched in veins.

The storm retreats, yet leaves behind,

the weight of echoes, sharp in mind.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And in that stillness, when everyone believed the worst had passed, a single sound rose again, too faint to name, but impossible to ignore.

In Shadows at the Edge

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Shadows lengthen where truths hesitate to speak.”

The shoreline carried a new weight as evening fell. Shadows crept further across the lawn, stretching toward the water as if trying to claim what daylight left behind. Conversations had thinned, but the sense of being overheard remained. Even in the silence, it felt as though someone was always just beyond the edge, listening, waiting, gathering what wasn’t meant to be shared.

At the cove’s edge, the air tightened. The laughter of summer had faded into a cautious quiet, and still the shadows seemed alive, as if they were listening harder than any ear.

At the edge where silence leans,

shadows breathe between the seams.

Every step feels drawn, contained,

by whispers echo cannot name.

What hides in dusk does not relent,

it waits in silence, unbent..

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And just when the quiet seemed steady, a shift stirred in the dark,something more than a shadow, something no one had yet faced.

Circles on the Water

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Every ripple begins in silence, yet carries further than the eye can see.”

The cove had grown quieter, though the memory of voices lingered like the aftertaste of summer. A single splash broke the surface, spreading circles out into the stillness, carrying the night’s echoes further than intended. In the distance, laughter rose and fell, as if carried on the wind from a gathering already dissolving into memory. The water revealed what the voices tried to hide, how quickly joy could ripple into unease, how quickly the world reminded you that nothing was ever just surface.

The circles widened, crossing into one another, colliding, breaking apart, reforming. That is how whispers move. That is how truths travel.

Circles widened, one after another,

meeting in silence where voices falter.

Every echo pressed into the cove,

carrying secrets the night could not hold.

What begins in play does not stay contained,

even still water remembers the sounds.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

But when the next circle broke the surface, it wasn’t laughter that carried with it, it was something else, something no one wanted spoken aloud.

Echoes That Return

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Every sound carries further than we imagine, weaving through silence, returning as echoes that remind us nothing is ever truly gone.

The cove was louder than my thoughts,

laughter bending against the stillness,

pressing its way into my chest.

I wanted to disappear,

to quiet what I could not control.

But vanishing has never healed a wound,

it only hides it deeper.

So I stayed.

I breathed.

I noticed.

The ache was not only mine.

It was the echo of every person

who has stood just outside the circle,

close enough to hear joy

but too far to be held in it.

The world is small,

and what we say travels farther than we know.

Words can cross water,

build bridges,

or set fires.

Today I chose to be still,

to let the echo pass through me

without becoming me.

~Kerri-Elizabeth ~

“When the next echo returns, will it stir the stillness like a storm’s edge, or settle in the silence as a truth softened by time?”