The Tides That Shaped Him

Not born, but worn—by years and salt and grace,
by quiet work the daylight never praised;
a hush that held, that held and held its place,
the kind of strength no trumpet ever raised.

He sang once—gold on wind and summer light,
a beacon flung against the edges’ dark;
his laughter loosed the buttons of the night,
his crisp white shirts the sail, his step the spark.

But time—time’s patient sculptor, blade of brine—
pared pride to patience, burnished bone to bread;
from triumphs, faults, it carved a single line:
to love what’s here, not what the dreamer said.

He did not shout to prove the worth he bore;
he knelt and fixed the world where it was torn.
He mended fences, floors, and something more—
the rifts in us we brought him every morn.

He spoke in glances: brief, exact, and true—
the harbor-lamp a storm learns how to read.
His eyes had seen what time and tempests do;
they learned to bless, and having blessed, to lead.

He helped; he did not hunger to be seen.
He loved; he did not posture for the praise.
He was—he was—the warmth that burns between
a door just opened and a waiting gaze.

There were unsounded rooms behind his breath,
soft griefs that never asked to be believed;
he stood—he stood—like mercy armed ‘gainst death,
a pillar no cathedral had achieved.

The tides once cut their scripture in his face,
and left a gentler grammar in their wake:
no crown, no throne, no brilliant, blinding place—
just dusk at peace, and peace for peace’s sake.

When he was gone, the weather lost its will;
the wind forgot the name it used to wear.
Even the clocks kept still to listen—still—
as if the second hand knelt down in prayer.

Yet something of him stayed: a patient spark
that waits inside the pause before we speak;
a steadfast hush that orders back the dark,
a strength made tender, ordinary, meek.

And in that silence—soul to soul made clear—
I hear the man who lived without pretense:
no varnish, no veneer—only the seer
of simple good, made flesh and common sense.