Rising Tide
Horizons bookend an immense
emptiness, and a waterscape
that’s fluent in the dialect of
desolation. The tides have
plundered the shoreline,
leaving a reek of decay and
iodine and even the high-art
of a cerulean sky appears to be
something strangely buoyant,
floating away upon clouds of
spindrift, as the surge of water
swells and claims still more
land, and the planet’s pulse
is now the perpetual rise and
fall of waves – the historical
record chronicled by colonies
of seabirds and gribble etched
across gnawed planks of drift-
wood that has been nestled in
salt meadows of rock-weed,
flotsam and tangled, green-
gold strands of kelp.
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John Muro
A resident of Connecticut and a lover of all things chocolate, John Muro has authored two volumes of poems - In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite - in 2020 and 2022, respectively. He is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, a nominee for the Best of the Net Award and, more recently, he received a 2023 Grantchester Award. John's work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Delmarva, Moria, River Heron, Sky Island and the Valparaiso Review.
You may follow John on Instagram.