Me and the Sea

 

Old friend, it's me again, 

Sorry that it's been so long,

It seems I'm fated never to remain, 

Within earshot of your endless song.

So often I've seen each shifting disguise, 

Revelled in your existential rage,

or your calms that take me by surprise,

Revealed like the turning of a page.

They're all you.

The small boy tossing stones in you, 

The young man idly strolling by, 

The proud father pointing out the view,

The mature man lost in staring at the sky.

They're all me

Perhaps after all we're better this way, 

Our occasional acquaintance forever renewed

Me knowing you'll be there come what may

You there to mirror my changing mood.

I'll try to remain me; I know you will remain you. 

Aldeburgh Beach; February 2018

 Aldeburgh Beach, February 2018; a clear still day with that particular light quality you get in winter. Blue sky leads to a bank of cloud on the horizon below which a calm sea breaks gently onto the beach....

Liminal

 

On the map so defined; a solid line of ink that says;

this side land, that side sea.

But I know better. I know the nuance and subtlety

Of this no-man’s land, where each side advances and retreats.

Not just each day, as the moon drags the immense weight of ocean

first one way then the other. But in longer measures of time, where

land becomes submerged here, but builds a further promontory there.

Measurable in a single lifetime, or incremental over aeons.

I may leave an ephemeral mark by drawing in the sand,

sometimes staying long enough to see it washed away.

 It’s temporary nature whispers;’ all things must end’.

But because it doesn’t really exist, can’t really be defined, only

glimpsed and held in memory, this foreshore wields a powerful magic.

 It’s my special place, where nothing else matters, only the present

matters; the sound of the sea, the salt tang in the air, the cry of gulls,

The crunch of shingle under my feet. Only here,

 in this transcendent space, I truly feel alive.