The Child Who Imagined the Sea*

The Child Who Imagined the Sea

 

The sea is the reckless expression

Of the child who first imagined it,

And perhaps, is still imagining it.

 

It is the reason for life's glorious yellow days

And the full spectrum of the emotions

And moods that yellow inspires.

 

It is the songbird that falls helplessly to the sand

And awaits the judgment of indifferent Nature,

 

And it is the pulchritudinous exasperation

Of a glorious autumn hurricane

That is suddenly caused

To dissipate �"

 

So furious in her thwarted intentions,

And so slighted as she fades

 

Into an afterglow

Of indefinite clouds,

Painted in watercolors.

 

It is every story the human mind

Has ever conceived and deeply cared about,

And it is the theme of every tragedy that is assumed

In the birth of every man and every living creature.

 

It is the wounded hermit crab that struggles heroically

To overcome the surf, only to be devoured on the beach

And the pink-faced lady who carries a heavy seashell

Like a lost sister in the pocket of her windbreaker.

 

It is a coldly delivered blow

To the cheek of a care-worn face,

And a fiercely untender gust of wind

That suspends hungry seagulls in mid-air.

 

It is the perilous rocking of a little fishing boat

And the blood and fish guts that slide upon its deck.

 

It is that faint pink

Aswirl with that rare yellow,

And that rare yellow rising from

That deep and painfully rich gray,

 

Death after tiny death,

 

Dawn after triumphant dawn �"

 

All the memories and all the faces

And things I have cared about,

Whipping around inside me,

And flapping their way out!