I don’t usually post poems here because submission guidelines for other magazines will not accept an author’s work either previously printed or posted online. But I just have to share this one. Thanks for reading and please share it with others who love to read and write poetry.

The inspiration for this poem is self-advocacy; I’ve learned that standing up to bureaucratic requirements, what I call nonsense, often wears down the complainant resulting in the complainant dropping a case. It also re-traumatizes the person each time the person must respond to filing deadlines, written statements and affidavits, as the person must, to an extent, relive the experience to be witness to it.

This poem attempts to express the resolve and power of circumstances one must choose to endure when planning to grab the rope of advocacy and pull back, often against a much bigger and stronger opponent.

Tide
By Ann Chiappetta

Hard packed sand softens
With each step, like thoughts
Yielding Cool and unbidden under foot

Sun Descending, I walk from east to west
Sea water surges
Scours away thought-foot prints

Hope and resolve walk beside me
I persevere, unable to alter the course.

Though the dunes rise to the left and waves
Grab and pull My limbs on the right

I stay the course.
Tears taste like the tide
and like the wet ambition of the fisherman’s net
ego escapes, pours back into the sea.
2020