Skeletons Of The Bank Poem by Micron Jan

Along the tidal riverbank they lie,
Eroded by storms, pulled by the tide,
Roots clawing at air where earth once held them,
Exposed at low water like brittle veins.
The river retreats, leaving hollow scars,
Trunks slanted, skeletal, silent witnesses
To nights when wind tore the bank apart,
And currents learned to hunger for soil.

Shadows stretch across mudflats,
Where only the memory of leaves remains,
And the ghost of standing wood
Shapes the river's pulse as surely as life once did,
Until the tide returns, relentless,
Washing over absence,
Carrying undoing and persistence
In one cold, unbroken rhythm of loss.