Here, By The Sea

He stands, looking out over the ocean,
And watches the movement of the blue-green sea,
His eyes calm, his heart full of emotion,
Here in this place that bleeds with the memory
Of one who took ship, beyond the world to sail,
Not so long ago that in the leaves of a tree
His father does not still see the green of his gaze,
Wild as the eyes upon a peacock's tail,
Wild with love of the sea's sunny ways.

Here, by the sea, is the smell of flowers,
Most ancient of scents in the ripening spring.
Here are the caroling birds who squabble for hours
Over a nest, or feathers, or some such bird thing.
He hears them when he wakes in the morning,
Startled awake by the brush of a dream-wing,
A sudden glimpse of his son upon a prow,
Head flung back as the sea shouts a warning,
Eyes green as the ocean with light has turned now.

Out, on the ocean, where the wave makes its dance,
There the silver is not flowers but the foam
That dolphins throw up when by ships they prance,
Moving faster than horses, the grace of a poem
Written in them as they arc up like arrows.
Then they dive again to their deep salty home.
And the father cannot think longer on his son,
Who has abandoned his land for where land narrows,
Where there is no forest to give green to the dawn.

Here, by the sea, the rippling bright breezes
Carry the sunrise and fill the heart with light.
There is a lightness about them that teases
When arc of the arcing bright upon bright
Sun fills the crops with its own reflection.
The stars are present, not overwhelming, at night.
In the sea the stars come down to the water,
And wheel there in white-balanced perfection,
A moment of beauty before the wake-slaughter.

Out, on the ocean, there are sliding hues,
A medley of colors and a medley of sound,
So many that the eye never can choose,
And resumes the restive roaming around
That the sea chooses on her guests to impose.
There is no firmness as in land or ground.
There is the thing that makes the father shudder,
This man who finds more wonder in a blooming rose
Than the bell of the sail or the pull of a rudder.

Here, by the sea, there is a small woodland,
Where on days like this, with the sun higher,
The corridors of green are laid out by God's hand
With glinting cobblestones of brilliant fire,
And to walk down those tree-paths is to dream,
Something innocent, of love and fulfilled desire-
Not the kind of dream that brings him awake,
Gasping and unable to see the light's gleam,
Whispering the warning that he forgot to make.

Out, on the ocean, there is constant change,
With nothing permanent to lie on the spume,
Where the desire to continue, the wish to range,
Is as seductive as the call of the loon,
Or the cry of white birds sleeting past in the dark.
His son will stand there, and look up at the moon 
(Thinks the father as he twists in a nightmare)
And forget, with those birds, the song of the lark,
And come to love the sea, and think it is fair.

Here, by the sea, the father closes his eyes,
Listening to the sound of his children playing,
Feeling the softness that always with sunrise
Comes to the house where his wife is praying.
He rises to his feet, and, with a dismissive hand,
Turns his back on the sea's leaping, saying,
(But in a whisper, said under his breath),
"He will learn better." He turns back to the land,
Not to see his son again this side of death.

Out, on the ocean, a young man lowers his gaze
From the sun that has just made the water turquoise
Laced with gold as it has done all his life's real days.
The dolphins that were part of what made this his choice
Have awakened and are freed from their sleeping.
They sing shrill songs as he says in a low voice,
"Because I could not love land does not mean I run."
He says this, and looks back at the dolphins leaping,
Their flanks and hearts shining in the light of the sun.