I read you were lost,

Sitting on my bed

Too drained

From my daughter’s

Good-bye.

I couldn’t stop

Reading.  It will be

months,

Before she’s back

In our lives.

On a tropical beach

Clouds streaming

Across a salt-filled sky.

You and a friend,

Smiling miles wide.

I see the unusual wave

Breaking the surf,

Overwhelming you both,

Catching you

By surprise.

It pulls you under,

Trapped in the

Churning salt water

And the embrace

Of a deadly riptide.

Carrying you swiftly,

Condemned

To the surging current,

Racing alongside the

Pacific shoreline.

A surfer snares

Your friend,

Grasping her hand,

Frantic

In the rolling tide.

You struggle

Through the swells,

Desperate,

To break the pull,

Time after time.

In the end, she

Thought you grasped

A rocky outcropping,

But no one knows

If you’re alive.

For me, a message

Read and re-read.

I pray you survive.

Later, lying in bed,

I know you die.

I never knew you,

Though I’m told we

Met in Costa Rica.

I don’t recall you

Walking by, I tried.

I read you were

Of Indian descent.

A student scholar

Who loved the

Adventurous life,

Just like my daughter,

Your lives are special.

These things can’t happen.

I think of my daughter

Smile miles wide.

Categories: Poetry, Selection: 2010 - 2015