. how could i love the sea,
its change, its flow, its crash and lash,
the way it meets the sky and
dances beneath boats, uplifting
if i did not know its weight, how
difficult it is to move
at all, and how infinitely much
of its life is still beyond my reach?
how could i love its motion
when forgetting the immensity
of its lovely
inertia?

. a body of water is a body indeed,
and she does not dance in the night for
just anyone. one must listen
to the sea, caress her wavelets with joy, and
imprint within one’s heart
with hopeless, fascinated failure
her ever-changing surfaces, like an artist
love her shape, the notes she sounds
in caverns and the deliberate way she
pulls the moon about her with low-lashed
modesty.

. beginning to move with her strange changings, unthinking, a slow smile
spreads in the dark as a cool silver moon-veil touches my cheek; a dance
reveals itself with mysterious comfort, uncovering itself to admit me
and sweep me away,
entranced.

c. Mary Kathryn Gough, 2010