Caught In The Tide

There are snapshots, colors
fading from the noon sun, lining
the radiator shields, the bookshelves,
the dressers and piano top. One
is of a young child in a striped
one-piece bathing suit, her father
lifting her above the waves, her face
happy and anxious at the same time,
the father smiling. And there he is again,
this time holding her arm at the church
as he takes her down the aisle and releases
her into the unknown, his face still happy
but filled with some uncertainty, looking
so handsome and young in his tuxedo,
friends and family in the background
whose faces the camera did not clearly
catch, its focus on the man and the young
woman. And then, there he is again,
sitting under the dogwood tree with his
youngest grandchild, a weary smile
gracing the definitive lines that men
who have lived thirty years at sea
and who have witnessed things the young
woman and the grandchild can't begin
to imagine often wear, and you would think either
the young woman, who has now earned
her own share of lines for entirely
different reasons, or perhaps a grandchild,
would recognize the importance of placing
these scenes in a photo book or a box
or in between the pages of a favorite
book so the fading would end, the erasing
of time halted, but the woman, in particular,
knows there is no stopping this gradual
fading into nonexistence, her memory
nearly as drained as the paper, her resolve
to persevere not what it once was, back
when she was lifted from the waves,
feeling the pull of the tide, worrying
even then that her father may not be strong
enough to save her, nor himself, from a plan
not of their device, but one they must live with.