The Edge of the Tide

The ocean does not care for the arrival of the sun. It has been moving in the dark for hours, a rhythmic, heavy breathing against the sand. We stand at the edge, waiting for the light to confirm what we already know: that the world is vast, indifferent, and entirely temporary. There is a strange comfort in this. To watch the horizon bleed color is to watch a beginning that has happened a billion times before. It is not a promise. It is merely a recurrence. We look for meaning in the shift from gray to gold, as if the sky owes us an explanation for the night. It owes us nothing. The water pulls back, revealing the wet, dark secrets of the shore, then returns to cover them again. We are left standing on the threshold, watching the tide erase our footprints before we have even turned to leave. What remains when the water finally stops moving?

Steve Hirsch has taken this beautiful image titled Pompano at Dawn. It captures the moment the light first touches the water, before the day demands anything of us. Does the silence of the morning feel like a beginning or an end to you?