Natural Course

If you are the tide
And I the shore,
I will let you slip near—
A natural flow,
Inevitable—
Then out again, if out too
Is the natural course.
There would be a little of you left,
Soaked in;
Some baubles left behind,
Slowly sinking
Deeper into me,
Beneath my ever-shifting sands.

But if you are a flood—
An equally natural phenomenon—
And take me by storm with your
Unyielding, stoic weather,
I will let you stay,
And forever change my terrain.
I will allow you to be
All-consuming,
Submerging me, forever
Beneath the soft liquid lapping
Of your new lake.
And if I were to look up,
Through the glassy surface,
Anything I see,
I would see only
Through that lens of you.

Tide or flood
Or streams converging,
Tumbling, merging,
Rushing to some unknown destination
Deemed appropriate by gravity
Where they might divide again,
Or where they may continue
Running in the single element
That once was two.

Whatever happens, this I know:
We were a natural course;
Inevitable.
Nothing else can be
Except what is,
And nothing else could have been
Except what was;
Nor can anything else be,
Except what is coming.