Of World Poem by Antonio Valentino

I was walking
on the beach this morning
as your light
was still beyond the horizon.

I was barefoot
and I was bitterly cold
but it didn’t really matter
as that’s how it’s always been
since you’ve been on your side,
of tomorrow.

As the sun started to sit up
from the ocean floor
to rise and stretch it’s fiery arms
I noticed that I had been
walking over some old footsteps
on the beach.

Traces of someone else's
life journey
momentarily trapped
in the wet sands,
of pause.

I looked to see
if the person
was ahead of me
but each time I did
the fog rolled over
and blanketed who it was,
if anyone.

I followed the steps
up and away
from the water
to an old abandoned beach chair
with a scarf tied to it
that was flittering in the wind
deep in argument
with the flap
of an old and forgotten shoe.

I picked up the yellow sash
and it smelled of salt
and grace.

It tasted like first light,
and had the softness
of yet untold affection.

I held it too my face
and pressed it to my lips,
remembering,
and then moved on.

These bewildering steps
took me
over marsh covered dunes
and around
a Monterrey pine
where a small bird
had fallen from its nest.

I went to put it back
in its home
but it flew off
toward the haze
of its own,
consequences.

I heard a seagull
fly by me,
but I couldn’t see it.

This mossy mist
had embraced me
as I was just
following these prints
of someone else’s existence,
one stride
at a time.

Another gull flew by,
and then another
and soon I could hear
a whole flock of them
shrieking up ahead of me,
as I quickened my pace.

Coming around a rock formation
I thought I heard a splash,
as the light ripped open the dim
revealing the warmth of moment,
and,
the still of disclosure.

Looking behind me
I saw my trail
had disappeared,
into the rising
tide.

And looking ahead
I saw the only steps left
that I had been following
leading,
into the water.

The sea had
a peacefulness to it,
as the waves
slowly started to wash away
the last few measures
of a swim,
hopefully,
and not someone’s
final…

I reached down
into the last imprint
right before it was erased
from earth’s memory,
and lifted up
a sharp medallion.

It cut into my hand
as it glistened
with the light
of a thousand occasions,
my red
dripping
onto
the blue,
and into
an unwritten ending
that swam away
with the swooning
swells.

I threw the orphaned
possession
as far I could,
but I did not hear,
the splash.

The birds were heading
out to sea
and so was the beginning,
of a new end perhaps,
to the other side,
of world.