A little trip
to a place in time
I proceeded with caution;
I didn’t know what to expect.

At the edge of the memorial wall
I dipped in one toe then the other and
the silent tide crept in. Dark cool marble

began its ascent to the left and I was slowly

immersed…first the ankles, then the knees –
a sharp cold pang and I was completely submerged.
And there were the phantom words etched in white, names
that appeared and disappeared in the morning light, names

that reflected and refracted, names that blinded, names that grew,
names like Jonathan, Larry, and Elijah, names of fathers, sons, and
husbands, names that stretched ten feet tall and four feet wide, names that
never returned home, names that shot, bled, and died. Suffocating, a black sea

turned red morphing into a violent green jungle and my reflection was in the middle
plastered by the chapters of a thousand lives with forest leaves ripping through the storm.
Defeated, I let go to let the tide take me but when I looked up everything had changed.
The storm ended. The gulls bayed. The tide was receding. Every life that was

taken was given a name and every name was placed on the wall to reflect
back the image of their families. I stood up and breathed in the
clean air, I felt the ground beneath my feet and made my
way back up the smooth incline with the white
block names slowly
shrinking
from
sight.