Ebb Tide

Lyrics:

© Grathy
Ebb Tide
Vocals and lyrics by Mary McGrath
Copyright medium.com 5/23/24
All rights reserved

I built my sandcastle when the tide was low. I thought the shoreline was a safe place to go as the sun had just started climbing over the horizon, and the day seemed still. No storms were in sight and the breath of wind was quiet.

I worked voraciously, fortifying the walls, slapping the sand together with the strength of the salty waves, I was sure that the castle was strong, as it stood proudly on the lip of the water, ready to face the day.

I sat in the sand and surveyed my efforts. I was tired. The sun glared down at me as it dried and hardened the sculpted walls. My palace was done.

Then the tide started to rise, its greedy hand looking for something to grasp. I hadn’t taken this into consideration when I built her. I was just trying to convince myself that I could create something that could defy the gravity of time.

Twilight pushed the daylight away and slowly, the foamy fingers of the ocean began scratching at the foot of my castle. Little by little the pebbles were dragged out to sea, the heavy anchor of the moon pulling the sand away to build its own fort below the waters edge.

The full face of the moon laughed at me, its yellow arm stretched across the ocean toward the shore. Relentless waves reached higher, as they continued to pull fists of sand until walls collapsed, and were pulled out to sea. 

The waves clapped as part of my castle fell, thinking that they had won. But I didn’t believe it as I shuffled home. Surely there would be a reprieve.

I came back the following day to try and find my castle. All that was that left were damp mounds of clay, and a few snakes of seaweed.

I glanced up the beach and saw something similar to my castle. As I got closer, I could see that a high fortress had been been built around my castle, and that it had moved farther away from the tide, making it very difficult for the ocean to penetrate.

I had resigned myself to the fact that my castle was gone, knowing that time often takes its toll on everything.

But sometimes things rebuild themselves for unexplained reasons, including my castle, even bolder now, standing proudly on the ocean’s shore.