A tern flies low
When it nears
The beach
Not to find food
But because there’s a height
Close to where
The water runs in
Where the tern can hear a sound
That reminds her
Of her younger times
When she would go up and down the shore
As rocks fell from cliffs
And the houses set far
From the waves
Began an introduction to them
The tern doesn’t travel
As far she used to
But her flights delight her more now
And she finds herself
Letting the wind keep her aloft
For longer and longer
Before she’s ready to land
Were it not for her appetite
She might not come down at all
There will not be any rearing for her
As she was never interested
In partnering
Beyond those few years
With her counterpart
Whose company was all soft rain
And leaves to guard from it
One day she went to seek out food
And when she got back
The home she had made
With her love
Had been stomped on
Destroyed
By man or animal
Who knows?
And her love was gone
Perhaps escaped
Hopefully nothing worse
She left quickly
And never went back
Now when she flies
She’d rather not come down
But the wind isn’t always kind
To those who love the air
Nothing can stay up forever
And the sun feels warmer
Than it used to
When the heat hits her back
She likes feeling
The scorch of it
Not because it’s painful
But because it reminds her
That she’s only being gifted
Her time in the air
The tern sees what looks like
A shining stone
In the sand
And dives to get a closer look
As she gets closer
She sees that the stone
Isn’t a stone at all
But a small pool of water
In the middle of the sand
She doesn’t understand
How it could be
The sun beating so bright
And the sand so warm
And yet here it was
A small pool of water
With a coin of light in it
Catching the attention
Of a tern flying
So high above it
This part of the beach is quiet
Just one or two people of the land
Sitting by themselves
On their towels
Reading their books
And eating their sandwiches
No children
No dogs
Nobody looking at this miniature pool
But the tern
The day is telling itself a story
So that it can fall asleep
And the let the night
Fall along the beach
Soon the tern
Will have to sleep as well
Night flying becoming
Too dangerous
As she ages
She’ll live longer
Than most other birds
But that means living in a way
That others like her
Never have to navigate
Before she takes off again
To find shelter in the dark
She’ll peer into the water
And try to see herself in it
The water is too small
To reflect the tern
Back at herself
But she tries
She tries to find
An image
She can recognize
In a place
That shouldn’t exist
At all
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