Chairs on the Dock

Chairs on the dock look away

from the land

toward water

 toward the horizon line.

Empty or occupied,

the chairs sit facing away

from all that's known,

from certainty and history.

Buildings on foundations

they occupy a space that 

is both grounded and not:

the dock solid ground over

ever shifting fluidity,

waves lapping in and then out.

The chairs sit still, as chairs do,

as their occupants do.

But there is a sense of outward

leaning

longing

waiting.

Chairs on the dock can't follow the winds

or the waves

or the tides

or the sun setting in the west.

But they bear witness.

And if you sit in a chair on a dock,

that chair holds you in possibility.

Its longings awaken yours

so that you know you can 

fly or float or find your way.

You know it even as you still 

don't know how.

If you fall asleep, there will always 

be another chair

on another dock

looking out on a body of water - 

or at least this memory 

of the balmy fall evening

you sat in a lavender metal chair at the edge of a dock 

looking into a Texas sunset over

a softly breathing lake

and you felt you had arrived

home. 

Thank you, Julie, for providing the creative space from which this writing came, and the bottom picture.