Within Great Stones
Don Hynes
On a trail down to the hidden cove
and one along the mountain river,
the brown earth and rolling sea
spoke to us the way they did;
I listened and hoped, later
pounding grief into sand,
giving ocean back her tears,
blaming myself
for the web soft and wet
that bound me to what hurt
against the movement of the tide.
To free another one must free oneself,
a godlike act, for where is freedom born
but within great stones
and the pulse that breathes upon the sea?
Your narrow footsteps marked the earth,
a trace the deer avoid,
the sadness of all you denied
filling the cove with salt
while seals bark in the rising mist,
darkness settles onto the gravel beach,
the old trees remembering, forgiving.
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