To live beside the sea
is to be with change,
the tidal rise and fall,
the night sky dark with clouds
when suddenly the dome opens
and the Milky Way arcs
from pole to pole
with distant suns shining,
softening me into forgiveness
as the hard edges dissolve
into the depths of darkness,
released like a falling star.

This point once had a native name
with salmon and rockfish flowing in the currents,
clams and oysters and herring uncountable,
camas covering the thin soils,
ancient cedars in the wetlands,
fir and oaks in broad savannas
where brush was burned again and again
for deer and elk and all sorts of game.
The list would take the book of life,
the trees, the plants, the grasses,
mushrooms, microbes
and fresh water veining in the rock.
Settlers called this Limberry Point;
they too would fish but for commerce,
felling the cedars and fir, burning the peat,
taking the herring in great nets
until eventually taking them all.
I’m watching with the ancient stones
whose feet stretch down to the sea,
extending into deep water
and the caverns of the channel
where another layer feeds and flows.
I become quiet, the inner tide
stilling through observance
while the outer ebb grows in force
south to the far straits and distant ocean.
I keep watch while I live,
still in love after all these years,
learning her movements,
her wisdom, her complexity.
One day I will dry up like summer grass,
joining the wind and passing tide
yet before I go I will speak of her
and witness how she shines.

You come in the night,
your signature unmistakable
over the darkened sea
and below the earth,
calling with your mystery
as folly breaks apart,
linking us once more
in unwavering silence.
From within seeds of beauty stir,
the waters of life gather
and you awaken asking
will you live with me?

Somewhere east
a Navajo man greets the sun
and north an Inuit woman
chews on a sealskin,
both remembering the giver of life;
an old immigrant rides the subway
alone in his thoughts amidst the crowd,
disheveled and isolate yet in touch
with the spirits of the underground;
two women return to the farm of their youth,
a young boy feels his manhood rising
and an old man walks the earth,
one foot aching, his head up
with eyes scanning the distant sea,
greeting Her in the early light
with the fondness of a lover.
The temple is vast,
the worshipers few
yet all connected by the web
that holds them,
ever in place
and ready to welcome
the returning.