Poems from the Ocean

Went camping for a few days on the beach. Came up with these poems while staring out to sea. Enjoy!

The Watcher

Between every grain of sand
the watcher sits,
counting many things
and carefully dividing them into
countless pieces,
creating of itself
a thing unnamed, a division
of one into many.
It divides
that it may create, and as its creation
makes of itself a precious thing,
a thing so valued
for one day, it shall end.

The watcher made an ocean
to teach us of a wave.
It made many collections,
circles, spirals, stars,
things of no number
to remind us that we all are countless,
and we all are counted,
and we all
are the counters
of things.


On Love

Shall I make of myself a fool for love?
Drown myself in it, a child spoiled by my years--
or shall I chase it own, a fox after the morning dove,
or relent, have it tame my will, instill such fears
as loneliness, or disregarded dreams--
I shall cleave myself of love! Fling it to the ground, retreat
to way of solitude, they themselves asleep, adream--
and I myself awake -- and in so waking, seem
in love of all, yet I am in love with none,
my heart promised to this world long ago,
and so, as promised, gone.

Love is not my master, yet neither am I tamed
by its pleasure, or the scarring of its flame.


Ocean Poem

The ocean, running into the sky
solid, like a land of lead;
I must shut out all the voices,
can't they leave me to the wind?
liberate my ear, as my ear, to listening, lends--
I would steal another minute,
one more wave to breach my soul,
give me silence, sense of purpose,
let me listen to that pull--
the rhythmic rushing of the future,
tangled currents of the past;
perhaps I'll be the ocean's lover
and be buried in the sand.

It was this ocean that taught me how to pray;
now I bend and bow to every wave.