At Freedom’s Edge

 

I lean in, to hear

her whispering storm,

tasting freshly-smeared wax

seeing salty rain splash

her sunlit cave

as her surge sprays back.

 

I paddle and make it just over

the ridge,

barely get through

flying upwards,

pulling G’s,

kissing her long-lost

lips’ mysteries.

 

Flicking me weightless

again the rain licks

my face,

on the back of her flow

with a deafening splash,

as I slide down her back side,

and finish safely outside;

already craving to go

inside her once more.

 

She invites me in,

my reason for being.

At freedom’s edge;

far from the world

and yet barely at sea.

 

I sit up and I see

white horses

swimming ‘round me,

talking softly,

showing me

the swell building up

in the gold-spill glow

of the fleeing sun.

She’s calling my name

once more.

 

Lookin’round I check,

and find myself alone;

my face full of rising moon,

busy dodging clouds

built like cotton balloons.

 Yes, ‘alone…’

 is where I’m from.

 

The foam on the wind,

the salt in my eye,

the sky bruised twilight;

remind me of why

I love to be the last one to leave,

as the chill hits the water

and numbs my sunken feet.

 

This is who I really am:

Wet, cold, happy and bobbing around

and it so… makes me glad

that I have lived this long;

kind of makes me feel young.

 

Yes, this is why, I even still try;

why I’ve paddled so long,

the choppy waters of life.

It’s in this very moment,

someday,

the way I’d like to die.

 

But right now…

she’s coming

this way.

 

I sink the tail

I pivot, turn

I try to time it right and aim.

She pulls and

I feel her sweet gravity;

my heart’s outside my mouth

faster, louder.

She picks me up,

I push down and pop

as she breaks, we fly

forward and slide

to the side

my board, her face and I

glide on her tears

and sling off her smile,

for seconds like these

I live, I breathe

and try to stretch life;

to here,

to be

on freedom’s edge

so far from the world

back with her,

lost at sea.

  

Copyright © Francisco Rebollo 2014