Resisting the Tides

I’m so thrilled to welcome Juanita as a guest author on Introspective Collective. Resisting the Tides is a truly beautiful poem full of strength, courage, and encourages a state of mindfulness amidst turbulence.

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Resisting the Tides

by Juanita Rey

• • •

I’m sitting on a rock
and the tide is rolling in around me.
I’m separating from the land.
There’s nothing underfoot but water.

The waves slap on either side
like the fists of a wife-beater
but I determined to remain calm,
to not move from my tiny island.

I know it’s all the moon and sun’s doing.
All those gravitational forces
acting on a spinning globe.
But, when you’re actually sitting here,
with ocean swirling around you,
it feels much more personal than that.

The pounding doesn’t stop me thinking.
The spray can’t interfere with my reminiscing.
This is my sanctuary.
I think of home and family,
not drowning.

Eventually, the tide pulls out.
It’s met its match.
Other rocks appear now.
Maybe other women will join me.

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Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country (United States) for five years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Harbinger Asylum, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.

Accompanying photograph is by Farrah Emami.

Celeste

This poem is a part of the Sister Series, a series of celebrating individual women and sharing their beauty through poetry.

Celeste

by Regan Smith

She’s sitting in the sky,
overlooking the ocean.

I’ve never heard such whispers
roar the ocean waves,
her ear is tuned toward its song.

Her heart is pure gold,
as if there were glass in it;
though it is worth far more.

It weighs heavy for others, this healer;
holding a heart of humility.

Her settled assurance,
shift the tides in other’s lives,
pulls them closer to our Creator,
the ultimate Love.