This dome, this half globe,
This bulging eyeball of water:
This is the staring unsleeping Eye of Earth.²
The sea is just a Wetter version of the Skies.³
What mutilation of ours: the Sea!⁴
We speak only to
Break the sea’s Silence—⁵
On every side is the Waste of Water:⁶
The sea is a Wilderness of Waves—
A desert of Water.⁷
Exultation is the going
Of an inland Soul to Sea!⁸
One that would be Sea-Master must know the
True Name of every drop of water in the sea.⁹
There are only a very few really
Permissible things: like the Sea.¹⁰
¹ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Akash & Forché, We Journey Towards a Home
² Robinson Jeffers, The Eye
³ Regina Spektor, Folding Chair
⁴ Isabelle Baafi, Callus Progeny
⁵ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
⁶ The Epic of Gilgamesh tr. N.K. Sandars
⁷ Langston Hughes, Long Trip
⁸ Emily Dickinson, Exultation is the Going
⁹ Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
¹⁰ Yukio Mishima tr. Nathan, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea