She was the sea

I. For your body, I weep

 

These tears are yours to drink

If they fall to your breast

Or collect behind my ears.

 

Tonight I heard Neruda’s voice

For the first time.

He sang Body of a Woman

And I’m certain of yours he wrote.

 

Ah, I know the infinite ache

That thirst and desire

And even the vengeance.

 

So, yes, drink greedily.

Take in all of my tears

For they are tears of love and lust

And they are shed for us.

 

II. Seduction by anatomy

 

My sternocleidomastoid met your labia 

in the mandibular shade

 

And only the rapid sounds 

of a closing tricuspid valve

 

Followed by one atrial contraction 

One faster after another, after another

 

Fell through the cool air

To your tympanic membrane.

 

My hand smoothed across erector spinae

And upon the rise of your gluteus maximus

 

A familiar sense of wellness in the world

Followed the path to and from

 

Ilium, ischium and
pubis

And some joyous whispers

 

Became diaphragmatic sighs and thence

Heaving mass of torso and pelvis

 

Finding rhythmic synchrony

As dancers around the stage

 

Ecstatic moans were pronounced 

Preceding collapse into muscular exhaustion

And rapturous sleep.

 

III. You can’t stop the ocean

 

We were trying to stop the ocean.

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

She wanted to understand love.  

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

They walked day and night.

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

He couldn’t sleep.

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

Their words burned through.

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

My feet, my hands, my shoulders.

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

It’s so very very late.

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

We were trying to stop the ocean.

You can’t stop the ocean.

 

IV. Fishermen’s mass

 

Today a shell told me

That he loved a stone.

That he’d never loved

A stone before.

But that this stone

Had stolen his heart.

I didn’t know what to say.

So I remained silent.

 

V. The Secret Society of Waves

 

I’ll bet in the secret culture of waves that they have a lot of names that start with "ts" and that they throw cotillions for the little ones to learn how to dance and dance and bow and dance some more- back and forth and back and forth.

 

Some waves end in ts and others begin and end in ts.

 

And none of them ever die (did you know that?).

 

VI. Together we are wise and beautiful

 

Do you think the man in the elevator, going up

Or the passport checker standing on the post

Or even the  highway patrol man

Noticed?

 

You all in brown and how it so perfectly

Complimented my blue sweater.

 

The play of our words overlapping

And never really cutting off

Like a song or a stage performance

Or some waves occasionally 

bouncing in to each other around the pier

And rising higher, splashing.

 

Figuring the mysteries

Describing the sea

Dissolving all tensions

That may have lingered or 

Settled into the fabric

Prior to our arrival.

 

Really what I’m saying is 

Something rather arrogant,

Unbecoming even, and certainly

Inappropriate for such humble-ones

Like us.

 

It is this: together we are wise and beautiful.

 

VII. She was the sea

 

Joshua Slocum may we one day speak

of the seas that you once sailed

and of the way they seemed

in those days of yours.

 

Days that surrounded the earth.

Did you feel yourself a conqueror

or a passenger?

 

Would you shout to the lonely depths 

of the sea and the sky?

What reply did you expect to receive?

 

You,

pacing from bow to stern

knew every grain

every perfect connection had passed under your hand.

 

What confidence you had in Her!

 

And when she did betray

the punishment was borne by you.

 

From waters calm as ice

through waves that were avalanching mountains

across the infinite water forms

falling from all sides and above.

 

She carried you upon her decks 

and into each youthful night 

and the howl of longing solitude

and pitiless darkness.

 

When you heard the voice of the spray

the voice of the turtle

the voice of the sea

Did you recognize it

as your own?

 

~ Wallace J. Nichols

 

“As for myself, the wonderful sea charmed me from the first…I had already found that it was not good to be alone, and so I made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self…”

~ Captain Joshua Slocum  (1844 – 1909), America's best known sailor was the first man to circumnavigate or sail alone around the world on his ship Spray.