Between the devil and the deep blue sea

From the city, the sea is seen
As a value
Measurable
Saleable
Waterfront property
To be career-climbed
The rightful prize
Of the inheritors of this material world.

It is not -
A tempest
It does not -
Swallow your lovers
For ten years or so
Odysseus to the nymphs of the sea
So succumbed
If briefly.

From a stranglehold land
We imagine
Ourselves impossibly
Conquering

We tame seas to cross them
To raid, to love, to bleed
To believe and find new believers
In savage lands.

The sea between - submissive.

We imagine our return
An inevitability.

I walk out now
Each step I take will fall first
And end there.
Each step will not be retraced.

Down the dawn street which dips
To the bluff
Beyond, the plunging deep

The Pacific
Which swims and swallows
All kinds of life

Which meets other oceans -
The Indian Ocean

They meet and nod
They wave
They acknowledge similar predilictions
Life - and their tastes
For the giving and taking
Of life.

The sand between my toes
Grows damp the further I go
To the very edge of my world.

To you, you know
To sea.

...