by Matt Markley | Nov 6, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Waiting Tide
From Three Years, Three Reflections: Letters to the Quiet Shore, vol.1
Notes / The Waiting Tide: I wrote this piece in remembrance of my beloved Jax on the third anniversary of their passage through the veil. It begins in the light before loss — moments of pain and shared love, and the fragile promise of tomorrow; and follows the long descent through silence, memory, and dark seas of a life unwished for.
Yet beneath that sorrow runs a quiet certainty: that love endures beyond every breaking, and that one day, when my own tide turns, I will cross that boundless sea and find my child – my dear friend — waiting in the light.
To my sweet angel, Jax. I will never stop saying your name. I miss you much more than words can even begin to articulate. I can only hope that one day when my tide comes in, I’ll find you there in the light, waiting for me.
The Waiting Tide
Yesterday’s tomorrow
was supposed to be
the doorway through
to turn the page
just hold my hand
this I promised you
a ray of light
of something better, so many plans
a hope that never grew
And then the light collapsed
no peace
no prayer would stay
the air was ash
the world unstitched
the light had lost its way
No promise held
no comfort spoke
only the weight of what was torn
the wind passed through an empty frame
time flowed dark and newly born
Then silence took the shape of sea
and memory became its tide
names dissolved beneath the waves
where sorrow learns to hide
Far beyond the edge of sound
where breath becomes the flame
something drifts between the worlds
unnamed
yet still the same
Seasons turned
and matter dreamed
and colors found their hue again
grief became a field of stars
that never ask us when
And each November gathers close
a shadow at my door
not to haunt
but to remind
of what the dark is for
The veil is thin at winter’s edge
and flutters when I call your name
a shimmer caught between two breaths
no loss
and no one left to blame
One day the skies will open wide
and the veil that separates will fray
light will rise from the waiting tide
to carry the night away
The stars will return what the dark once claimed
as the circle closes
and we are whole again
by Matt Markley | Nov 5, 2025 | Poetry
All That Shines
From Three Years, Three Reflections: Letters to the Quiet Shore, vol.1
Notes / All That Shines: I wrote this poem as a semi-biographical, to remember the warmth and joy Jax brought into this world — a radiance that continues to move through every life they touched. The poem reminds us that while loss may darken our days, it cannot undo what love has illuminated. Some lights do not fade; they change form, they scatter…
They shine on in all of us.
All That Shines
You were never one shade
you were the spectrum after rain
Laughter bending light just so
showing us ourselves again
You loved like sunlight on broken glass
turning edges into flame
When someone’s sky went dark
you whispered softly, stay
You were a bridge for all to cross
and a hand for all to hold
You showed us love could move like water
gentle, fierce, and bold
Oh, the color that remains
still shining through the pain
You wrestled the sky for your soul’s true name
a song that could carry your truth
The world was slow to understand
but your heart was always proof
You were a bridge for all to cross
and a hand for all to hold
You showed us love could move like water
gentle, fierce, and bold
Oh, the color that remains
still shining through the pain
Now every dawn feels touched by you
each laugh, each light, each hue
You taught the night how to hold the day
how love can never fade away
You were a bridge for all to cross
and a hand for all to hold
I still can hear your voice in silence
feel your warmth in the cold
Oh, the color that remains
forever, it remains
by Matt Markley | Nov 4, 2025 | Poetry
From Three Years, Three Reflections: Letters to the Quiet Shore, vol.1
Notes
I wrote Ash Beneath the Flame from the hush of memory, where love and regret drift together, close enough to touch. It speaks to that small, unquiet ache we carry — that itch that can never be scratched, the echoes of what was lost still moving somewhere beneath the skin. It is for the moments we replay, knowing they will never return; for the faces we reach for in dreams, and for the question that lingers gently in the smoke of all we’ve lived, loved and lost: Would you do it all again?
Part 1 of 3
For Jax, whose guiding light endures beyond all tides. Shine on, sweet rainbow. This is for you.
Ash Beneath the Flame
The days fall softer now
their edges worn and kind
what once was fire now glows beneath
the ash the years confined
There are faces time erased
but shadows still remain
I reach for what I cannot hold
to do it all again
The hands that built, the eyes that dreamed
lie still beneath the rain
their echoes hum in hollow rooms
where silence speaks your name
And in the dark, that quiet pull
the heart’s unending strain
it burns to touch what can’t return,
asking me, would you do it all again?
The glass is cracked, the frame is bent
the picture will not restore
I see us there, forever caught
before the closing door
No mercy in remembering
no solace in the flame
just every joy that tore the soul
and made it feel the same
And when the sky folds into sea
and night begins its reign
I ask the ghost that lives in me,
Tell me true, my friend
Would you do it all again?
