Zachary G. Jacobs
San Francisco, California, United States

 

Finding Peace Photograph taken and edited by Zachary Jacobs

The ocean wind gusts,
heady and thick,
chapped lips speckled
with briny grit.
Gulls yammer in protest of the breeze,
fits of throaty birdsong
amid the whisper of the sea.
She sits.
Sand conforms lovingly to her hips,
toes wriggling in its cool embrace,
as the sun succumbs to the horizon,
its warmth, long forgotten,
slurped up greedily by time,
relentless,
and fleeting as the breeze,
which swells once again,
sending chills along her spine,
a thousand tiny soldiers at attention on bared skin.
Squinting into the distance,
or perhaps, the past,
she implores her dying eyes to see,
to remember:
mother and son huddle in the building dark,
as waves gather in lacy swirls ‘round their feet,
droplets of sea-salt air on sun-kissed cheeks,
a single loving kiss
on the young child’s lips.

 

 

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ZACHARY G. JACOBS, MD, is an academic hospitalist and a storyteller who believes that compassionate care and patient-centered medicine are enhanced by a familiarity with narrative. He is driven by his passion for stories, and aspires to capture and recount their beauty through poetry, prose, photography, and visual arts.

 

Spring 2018  |  Sections  |  Poetry