For my thirty-fourth birthday, Jonathan gave me the gift of silence and solitude. It was incredible. 24 hours completely to myself. I ate in the sun, in the woods. I meditated. I read. I napped. I slept. I ordered room service, and took a leisurely shower, and probably said fewer than 100 words.
In the morning, I sat beside the window and watched the sun rise on a warm winter day, and I wrote.
I don't usually write poems. I adore Dickinson and Cummings, Plath and Whitman. I remind myself that I am not them, so I don't write. But this just spilled forth -- I suppose it wanted to be written. To be exhaled. So, even though Dar and Peter and Shawn have already written perfect songs about therapy, and Emily and E.E. and Sylvia and Walt have written perfect poems about everything, I wrote my own poem. About therapy.
Sometimes the Sea
Sometimes
It is like the sea
The air is alive, there
Anointing me with salt and
Fine grains of sand
It is fecund.
Wading out, and
The water
Isn't deep
Yet
Further, and further, and I thought that
By now
I'd be buoyant
But my feet drag through the
Thick sand and
Cutting shards of shells.
Mirth.
You are there.
Today I go out.
The pull is insatiable--
I want to go to the place where the endless water
And the endless sky
Merge.
I want to be enveloped.
I am emboldened by
The testing of my expectations as I
Waded out
Before
See? It's not so deep.
Today
You stay where you can touch
And you smile.
There is that curious expression
I can never decipher
Pride? Fear?
Satisfaction?
I move to the endless place
Chasing impossibility
Alone.
One step and
The bottom is gone
Fear, instantaneous
The next breath is
Regret.
I am angry
Where
Are
You?
Why didn't you tell me--
A person can't reach that place?
A person looks foolish, trying?
You just
Watched.
Today
You go to the edge of where
The sandy floor
Drops
Into nothingness
And the water undulates
And the silence stops
Time.
You motion to me, inviting me
And your face
Confusion?
Why isn't she here?
What is the hesitation?
You don't
Understand.
As I move to the deep
Place, you move
To the shore.
Today
You are here.
We stand and watch the waves
Crash
Violent, unrelenting, birthing
Swaths of foam
Decaying strings of seaweed
Ugly shells--
The kind even children refuse
To collect.
I look to you
Do I go in today?
Am I
Strong?
Is it foolish? You
Stare, past the beating waves and
Past the endless drop and
Past the silent place.
You fix your focus
On the far-away place where
The water and the sky are
One
What does it mean?
What do I do?
We've come to
The sea
Today
The urgency of
Now
Is rising and I
Don't know
What to do
I swallow it, and it
Settles
A rock in my throat moves
Down to a place in my stomach
I close my eyes
I take in the
Thick, salty air, and I
Am fine.
In the morning, I sat beside the window and watched the sun rise on a warm winter day, and I wrote.
I don't usually write poems. I adore Dickinson and Cummings, Plath and Whitman. I remind myself that I am not them, so I don't write. But this just spilled forth -- I suppose it wanted to be written. To be exhaled. So, even though Dar and Peter and Shawn have already written perfect songs about therapy, and Emily and E.E. and Sylvia and Walt have written perfect poems about everything, I wrote my own poem. About therapy.
Sometimes the Sea
Sometimes
It is like the sea
The air is alive, there
Anointing me with salt and
Fine grains of sand
It is fecund.
Wading out, and
The water
Isn't deep
Yet
Further, and further, and I thought that
By now
I'd be buoyant
But my feet drag through the
Thick sand and
Cutting shards of shells.
Mirth.
You are there.
Today I go out.
The pull is insatiable--
I want to go to the place where the endless water
And the endless sky
Merge.
I want to be enveloped.
I am emboldened by
The testing of my expectations as I
Waded out
Before
See? It's not so deep.
Today
You stay where you can touch
And you smile.
There is that curious expression
I can never decipher
Pride? Fear?
Satisfaction?
I move to the endless place
Chasing impossibility
Alone.
One step and
The bottom is gone
Fear, instantaneous
The next breath is
Regret.
I am angry
Where
Are
You?
Why didn't you tell me--
A person can't reach that place?
A person looks foolish, trying?
You just
Watched.
Today
You go to the edge of where
The sandy floor
Drops
Into nothingness
And the water undulates
And the silence stops
Time.
You motion to me, inviting me
And your face
Confusion?
Why isn't she here?
What is the hesitation?
You don't
Understand.
As I move to the deep
Place, you move
To the shore.
Today
You are here.
We stand and watch the waves
Crash
Violent, unrelenting, birthing
Swaths of foam
Decaying strings of seaweed
Ugly shells--
The kind even children refuse
To collect.
I look to you
Do I go in today?
Am I
Strong?
Is it foolish? You
Stare, past the beating waves and
Past the endless drop and
Past the silent place.
You fix your focus
On the far-away place where
The water and the sky are
One
What does it mean?
What do I do?
We've come to
The sea
Today
The urgency of
Now
Is rising and I
Don't know
What to do
I swallow it, and it
Settles
A rock in my throat moves
Down to a place in my stomach
I close my eyes
I take in the
Thick, salty air, and I
Am fine.
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