LatinosUSA

The moon does not cause tides

to rise and fall. The water is still.

The earth turns inside the bulging sea.

We move but confuse our place as stable.

But what do I know of tides, born here,

a thousand river miles from the mouth?

Our waters rise and fall with seasons,

not hours. We measure days with the sun.

We were once the solid, unchanging ones,

in the heart of the country. Our rivers,

its arteries. To know the soul of the country

was to go west, but only so far. We were the end.

Now the coasts control the nation

with people who see themselves

as the measure of tides, unaware

they are as unstable as we of the plains.

It is said the coasts will fall into the sea,

go deep into the water, until they disappear.

What then of us, rent in two, like the sail

of a floundering ship caught in a tempest?

Like the arms of a mother, the mountains

will keep the tide at bay, until the shallows

of the Gulf rise, as they did once before,

and we, too, find ourselves drowned.

---

https://www.amazon.com/Bricolage-Richard-Stimac/dp/1958182214

Featured poet, Sept. 16, 2025, Poetry at the Pub, Rolla, Missouri, USA

Bio: Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region.