I walked along a sandy ground
How beautiful it was, what I found.
Big water floating down,
Happy fish swimming around.
I swam morning, noon, and night.
Never fearful, never a fight.
The words the river had spoken,
Never I thought would be broken.
Whispering through the breeze,
My heart, my mind, would freeze.
He’d say, “I’m the biggest, I’m the best,
My fish most beautiful. Forget the rest.”
My heart, my mind, went on forward.
What was I walking toward?
How was I to know
What the river bank had to show?
I rose my eyes, looked ahead,
Where I used to look down instead.
Best thing I did to look around.
I want to tell the world what I found.
Beautiful is not enough to say
How special the new day.
Bigger water, brighter fish
Stars above, too many to wish.
I closed my eyes, dove right in.
A great new life I’d begin.
New whispers, a brand new start,
In the hollow of my heart.
Why go back to the river
If it is barely a sliver
Of what this ocean is to me?
My heart, my mind, my body free.
All the world should be envious.
I found the biggest, the brightest
Of all the happiness around.
It is love that I have found.
— Carmelina Castano
(The author is a Jersey City resident. She can be reached at sunshower_888@yahoo.com.)