The Ebb of Knowing

A Poem on the Unfolding Dance of Discovery... or so I thought

This poem began, as all deeply reflective poetry does… in the shower.

The opening line came to me, unprompted, and something in it asked to be written. I had been thinking about that seductive pull toward wanting to know what’s next in life. How easy it is to crave the clarity of a plan, the comfort of a label, the satisfying checkmark of a completed goal. You know, classic existential musings between shampoo and conditioner.

But beneath all that striving, I kept bumping into a quieter truth: that our obsession with certainty is mostly an illusion. And that the real secret might just be in staying curious.

So I wrote a poem. A contemplative one. Or so I thought.

Then I read it out loud.

Let’s just say… once I heard the metaphors spoken out loud, I couldn’t un-hear them. Suddenly, phrases I intended as deep and spiritual began to sound like something else entirely. Something steeped in various suggestive innuendos. A little too breathy for a meditation on certainty.

I almost didn’t post it. But then I remembered: meaning is in the mind of the reader. And now that I may have influenced that already, if you hear the siren song and think of seduction, I get it. Certainty is kind of flirty when you think about it. Always just out of reach, always promising to show you everything if you just come a little closer…

So here it is anyway, double meanings and all.

(Read it however you like. I’ve already said too much.)

Sunset over Stinson Beach, CA

Oh, certainty, you sweet singing siren,
I hear your call, it lingers, insistent,
a light on the horizon, dissolving, returning,
fading, remaining — unnamed.

I turn toward you, hand outstretched,
my fingers hover at the door handle.
The warmth of recent arrivals,
the heat left by countless departures.

I take a step, slow, deliberate.
The weight, the knowing.
Then — a pause, a final breath,
doubt flickering in air.

A comfort, its outline barely there,
a frame I recognize, faint, dissolving.
It is belonging — the vanishing kind.
The kind that leaves before you can name it.

The walls, once firm, now a murmur,
slipping away, just beyond reach.
No longer holding, no longer sure,
unraveling, as all things must.

Oh, certainty, I mistook you
for arrival, for rest, for home.
But it was never you who called me,
never you who let me in.

It was curiosity — steady, quiet,
“I have always been here,” it said
not pointing, not demanding,
listening, allowing — forever unfolding.

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Background music in audio by Sola Vimi