“Low Tide” by Merrijane Rice

My father is leaving. He ebbs and flows— we call him back, but each time he slips a little further. He is tired, he says, impatient for his journey home.

I urge on him just one more day and he laughs. I suppose he wonders, for what? Is there any good thing he can teach that he hasn’t lived for my instruction every other day of thousands?

Perhaps just this: How to let go without regret, to suppress love like the moon that pulls and wills him always back to shore.