I knew a man once with hair like King Tritan
His love wrapped around a woman
From his youth and her seven children
And of course, his beloved dog.
Our chats were brief and infrequent
But in the silence and the way he served
I could see how he cared for her.
He was tangled up in a tidal wave
At times, the water could be tamed
Life would paddle along, no calls made
But then the rising water
Crushed him with tsunami force.
He couldn’t escape the waves.
One last storm swallowed him up.
We sat around the beach the next day
Our tears spilling into the sunlit ocean
That stole him away too soon
I held the broken-hearted woman close
No words enough, wishing to rewind
Acknowledge the signs, sense the deafening storm
To never again minimize another’s pain.