Sitting by the ocean with my mother.
Today is her 103rd birthday.
We’re leaning on a log watching the surf pound the shore
and the long slow slide of the waves reach up the beach
foamy at the edge
thin and cold, glass like
rippling over the tiny craters of the razor clams
and pulling back again, faster, like they are pulled by a rope
connected to the whole, to the One:
the All force of Time, Power
expressed in this unique Eon of ours here
as water.

Water
timeless
indestructible but vulnerable
the home of giant Blue Whales and tiny Shrimp
the waving kelp and sea grass
the hiding places of sea otters
crunching joyously on their shells amid their cozy tangled beds of floating kelp.

Ocean, timeless

You’re here today, aren’t you?

I’m always with you, honey.
My beloved daughter.

The surf curves, green and luminescent
the edge falls white, a trick of the light.

A bright red balloon floats by us
a child running after it, crying
her mother catching up to her as the balloon lifts into the air
passing into the sunlight.

I turn to look at where my mother was sitting.
But she’s no longer there.