A Sea-Thing's Borrowed Words

A Sea-Thing’s Borrowed Words

The French say: “Follow the river and you will find the sea.”

A finger pointed eastward, a journey of mere hours

The vague promise of the ocean and it’s starry showers

The sandy shores that raised the children free

Wind roaring about me, I try to smell the sea.

I long for the endless immensity, chere Antoine,

Dreaming of immortal waters speckled by the dawn

Though inland far I live, the gulf still calls to me

And no famous poets’ words ease that consuming need.

I thirst for salty water, as strange as it may seem

My need is for an endless ocean, not a crystal stream

To feel the gritty sand, hoarse whisper in my ear

Just the briefest glance would see me through the year.

I followed Isak’s every word, to the very letter

My eyes were full for days, the more tears the better

Sweat dripped out of every pore, left a saline film on me

But it seems my only salty cure will be the salty sea.

The wander-thirst is on me, truer words I never heard

I lust for open water, where the mortal line is blurred

Poseidon’s body is my shrine, a blessed paradise it be

I truly want to learn to pray, so let me go to sea.

I lost part of myself, cummings, and you told me to look out

Where I found a kind of sympathy for Shakespeare’s men of doubt

A deceiver ever, my mind on land and my heart at sea

I’ll never be the entire person that you want me to be.

A boat of any shape and sort will do just fine for us

So long as it does not falter at the slightest gust

We could build it all ourselves, anything it takes

So long as we are out to sea before the morning breaks

A fretful poet knows me, dry land we betrayed

The wild call of the sea cannot be disobeyed

An honest understanding of the lonely sea and sky

I am his vagrant gypsy born to a land-locked life.

Masefield, my laughing fellow rover, put it best: “Sea Fever.”