Articles/Essays – Volume 11, No. 3

Sea Piece For Two New Voices

We are the sisters of the sea. 
Something there is in you and me 
That calls us to our very coasts, bids us stand 
Where green-veined breakers moan upon the sand,
Seeking something the old oceans hide. 

Ah, we have sought it long and wide— 
You sometime at Santander, where a rising tide
Walks slow, as passing time, on a gold and stone-proud land;
And I in dreams of the Aegean and the shattered hand
Of heroes at her winedark door.

Times together we have walked the shore 
Of night, have made dark auguries by the roar
Of moonbent oceans. Bits of shell and straw in crescent lines,
The salt-blacked body of a tern; these were the signs
By which we guessed the harsh heart of the sea. 

And guessing this, we have begun to see 
The salty grace and the essential gaeity 
Of sea-wrens skanting over glassy ground 
Like crazy gravel tossed, and of two wet ravens that have found 
Something to descant on from the manzanita.