I am held within the ocean

Fluid, undone

I cannot find where I end

She cradles my darkness

And light

As my mother’s inner oceans once did for my growing form

Water, first medicine

My body also the sea

Powerful and truly wild in ways

I only sometimes let myself know

Today

Now

There is only this

Thorough peace

Reaching in every direction

Here, we swirl

Embraced by the warm hands of the sun,

The wind’s caresses and sultry laughter

Flowing into a low hum of voices across the beach

That erupt together in a wave of chimes

That is someone else’s squealing child

Bare legged, venturing to cool water

Before darting back to his mama

Whose attention is focused on birds stealing cookies

From her husband’s worn fingers

That are now flapping too

The gold band like hers fracturing sunlight

Til he pulls his broken boon under cover

Screaming alarm against the winged folly

The wife’s hand draped across her moon face

To hide delight

Laughter spills out anyhow

Cooing, “They love chocolate as much as you, darling,”

The hairy chested husband

Not laughing at all

But takes her hand

Meanwhile

The soft waves kiss the shore again and again

Day after day and hour

My body surrendering to all this witnessing and more

Til I am so open

And flowing

That I am pouring out

Into a memory of last night’s dream

A sea crone in my mirror

Staring back with a glint

Into my own eyes

Seaweed heart and words

Knowing safe places

The alchemy of beauty

Patience

And salt

In the dream I ran my hand though my dark hair turned white

From the roots to the middle

A mop of iridescent threads spilling into former identity

Sprouting up from my inner seafloor and all the other worlds I hold within

Cool pine forest carpets and heartbreak

The earth’s trespasses

Howls of birthing, shuddering women

Words splattered on pages, or tucked neatly in straight lines

Dew of mornings

Sounds of grief and songs

The quenching of lips and tongues

And joy

All this was shown to me in my dream’s reflection

And the ripples on the ocean’s skin

Luminous and holding the sky

My own face staring back with its emergent lines

In my dream memory’s mirror

And water

No longer unready

For this wizened version of myself

The white coils I will soon brandish

Like sea froth

Hold the journey from the depths

Of my own tumbling and mutable ocean

“Embrace change and love,” she tells me again

“Let it flow through and back into all the oceans of the world.”

Sea Foam

Travels, stays, (mostly stays these days) explorations of the heart and life.