The Sea

The ocean at Walburga

The sea will change you like the broken glass of an indeterminate future. It has no presumptions; does not acknowledge class, income, gender or nation. Gifts are given freely as are tragedies. Relentless breathing on an equated universe, the sea will dissolve misunderstandings, give wonder another chance, prove the relativity of an entire life. Neither inevitable nor predictable. Words cannot pretend to describe its nature. Effects multiply as the earth turns. Fevers lessen–the heat dissipates. Where were you when the moments became so poignant? A vapor unable to share such a destiny, too transfixed on the common era. Your soft eyes forgave everything but were not compelled to the journey. Are the green densities you perceive from still above ground? I cannot begin to know. Strange days down by the railroad tracks, down by the lost boys deep within Manhattan subcultures. Such copy, I have not begun to use up all that copy. Events translated, the ocean roars and makes them known.

The light here will change you. Far from the indigestible city, the noise, the trash, the opportunities coming as fast as the D train. I have known lifetimes in this place. Who could those selves be? Trammeled and trampled, revived and rejuvenated, lost and found, all things at all times. A place so inscrutable you think you know it. You realize you are wrong, though the thirst for familiarity persists. A shady corner that holds all the books in the world; a sour destitution so potent you cannot look for long. Where have you gone, my sweet youth, our bodies ripe for the plunking; elementary ideas formed as cool flesh meets hot temper? More, you said. Yes. More it is. Anatomical surveillances begrudged you stable employment. The money ran out so you dove toward unmentionable solutions. We will never meet again, I fear. The sea has regarded all this and closed the seam. We walk in splendid memory, young forever, by the vast ocean. Waves take no notice, repartition at its most regenerative. Your ghost waits by the dockside, full of joy and mischief. Jewels of remembrance resurrect and reconstruct in a particular reverence when by the sea. Sunset shafts across time and place. Morning at water’s edge infiltrates the bloodstream. All is well here.

These pleasures are indeed momentary. Slick as an eel, ephemeral as fog. The dance comes and goes as it pleases. Who are we within all this preconceptions, I wonder? If you consider it, we are as changing as the open tide. Revolving pendulums. Up we go, there’s a good girl. To the mast, you say, overboard no good. Not in this lifetime or the next, if we have one. Who’s to know. Conjectures wastes time. Opportune philosophies give pause. You can fix your world with tables and chairs and flatscreen TVs. In the end the illusion fails us. The sea knows, though. It’s in and out, up and down, hot and cold, often lukewarm, tumultuous and divinely calm. The sea. The brilliant guru.