Things the ocean taught me

I

 

back to land, to

numbers, screens, digits, dials,

quotas, schedules,

alarms. my heart recalls well

days at sea, but already forgets

the lessons learned there. i am in

need of some words, some mantra, some

prayer perhaps, to remember these things–

 

II

 

what i do not know is

vaster by far than the

rolling wave of what i do.

what is great and greatly

unkown can be either

feared and shunned or

wondered at, praised,

beloved. i have seen many things.

there are many more i will

never see–

yet all things, whether

teariest pleasure, creeping weeping joy, or

darkest, deepest terror, all will

someday end–

the edge of one ocean is

too, the border of another, newer one,

not yet traversed,

holding more wonders,

more joys, more fears,

and yet more lessons to learn

and recall when needed most.

***

impressions left on sand

***

Mostly we sit, sandy down, and do not a thing,

(as build and tumble tidal walls, and promptly

crumble sisyphusianly) and call peaceful

the clamor, crying out the waving wails.

False the faulty frustrated seas–

seasoned sodiumed up, too bitter to be of much use

except to carry us to some other else

or to sit idly beside

[eyes closed]

close enough to be glad

to be not submerged

in cold weary deep.

 

Yet behind these bulbs, as by

squinting squeezing scrunching closed

i try to shut out the bigness of earth–

still within are

flows more violet, violent blue

(and He could have put them anywhere,

and anything else there)

than any they have seen

when wide open

***