The Sea is a Wilderness of
Waves – a Desert of Water²
What Mutilation of mine – the Sea³
On Every Side is the Waste of Water⁴
The Sea is just a Wetter version of the Skies⁵
This Dome, this Half Globe, this bulging Eyeball of
Water: this is the Staring Unsleeping Eye of Earth⁶
Exultation is the going of an Inland Soul to Sea⁷
One that would be Sea-Master must Know the
True Name of every Drop of water in the Sea⁸
We Speak only to Break the Sea’s Silence⁹
There are only a very Few really
Permissible things: like the Sea¹⁰
¹ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Akash & Forché, We Journey Towards a Home
² Langston Hughes, Long Trip
³ Isabelle Baafi, Callus Progeny
⁴ The Epic of Gilgamesh tr. N.K. Sandars
⁵ Regina Spektor, Folding Chair
⁶ Robinson Jeffers, The Eye
⁷ Emily Dickinson, Exultation is the Going
⁸ Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
⁹ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
¹⁰ Yukio Mishima tr. Nathan, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea