Where the Land Ends

There is a point where the solid earth loses its nerve. It stretches out into the water, a spine of wood and iron, reaching for something that does not want to be held. We build these structures to convince ourselves that we have a place to stand, even when the tide is rising. We walk to the end of the boards, looking out at the dark, waiting for a sign that the horizon is not just a line drawn in the void. But the water does not answer. It only moves, indifferent to the weight of our feet or the history of the wood beneath us. We are left with the salt air and the cooling temperature of the evening. Is it the pier that is waiting for the sea, or is it the sea that is waiting for the pier to finally give way?

Ana Sylvia Encinas has captured this stillness in her image titled An Old Pier. It holds the quiet tension of a boundary between what is known and what is lost. Does the water feel the wood, or is it merely passing through?