echoes

The Chair at the Edge

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Even the empty chair listens, holding the weight of what’s been left unsaid.”

At the edge of the lawn, a chair sat untouched. Its presence was simple, but it carried more than wood and fabric. Empty seats are never empty, they hold the memory of voices, the press of conversations unfinished, the echoes of what may have been spoken but wasn’t.

In the cooling air, the chair became a witness. Every rustle of leaves, every faint sound drifting across the cove seemed to lean toward it, as if the silence itself demanded to be heard. The absence of someone there was louder than any gathering could have been.

The chair waited, steady at the edge, holding a space that could not be ignored.

An empty chair is never bare,

it holds the weight of those not there.

It gathers whispers, keeps the sound,

of words that never left the ground.

It waits in silence, still, contained,

with stories that linger and remain.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And in the waiting, the chair seemed to promise, what is unsaid will one day return, and it will not be as quiet.

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?

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?”