Sea Dreams....

I know it's December and yes many are looking at a winter escape. Several bloggers have posted about the sea in warmer climes. Their posts have been about children in bathing suits enjoying the water, the sand and the sun.

Caro Ness wrote a wonderful poem about the seaside and Muriel Jacques posted about a friend's photography exhibition "Teal." Named so, because many of her pictures involved shots of the mediterranean. I couldn't help thinking of a poem I posted a few years ago by e.e. cummings. Here it is again.

maggie and milly and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea 

As simple as the poem seems to be, it says so much. Think of being one with a stone as large as alone, or hearing the siren's song in a seashell and maybe feeling the mystery of the universe in a starfish. There is something incredibly compelling about the sea. Its vastness consumes us and in a way, we come to see how finite we really are and how trivial  our material acquisitions and desires may be. Better perhaps to collect, stars, songs and  stories, or the spirits that inhabit our environs, then to pursue those material comforts, which will never endure and too often lose their appeal, once purchased.

Time, maybe, to lose ourselves in a starry night, a frothy sea, or a snowy landscape than, the mark down madness of the mall!!