Ebb

by Edna St. Vincent Millay — a poem card from Justes Mots

A devastating image of the heart after loss, compared to a tidal pool drying away on a ledge. The extended metaphor captures both the sudden absence of love and the slow, irreversible process of emotional diminishment. The poem conveys the gradual erosion of the self through grief.

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.…

Themes: sympathy · grief · reflection · long-distance