Book of Eucalypt

The cliffs hold their lines like an old story
cut by years of wind, waves, and stubborn hope.
I stand where the water keeps rewriting the shore,
letting the past roll in, letting it roll back out.

I once thought life would follow a distinguished map,
with clean straight roads or neat edges,
but no surprises.
But nothing here is straight.
The sea bends everything, even stone,
and still the view is beautiful.

I think of the plans I reached with vigor,
the goals I met that when slipped through my fingers.
For a long time that felt like failure.
Now it feels like tide work,
a pulling and reshaping that carried me somewhere new.

These stacks of rock were never meant
to stay whole forever.
They broke, they changed, they kept standing
in whatever shape time gave them.
I see pride in that.
I feel pride in myself for the same reason.

The waves keep moving with no promise
of what they will leave behind.
I breathe with them.
Ready for the next turn,
honouring the steps that brought me here,
grateful that the unexpected path
was the one that opened the horizon.