Sea Healing

A wild unruly coastline --
Waves march in ordered sequence
to end in joyous explosions of spray.
Sand etched daintily by the feet of gulls
shivers from the orgasmic thud of surf.
Jagged chins of rock jut defiantly,
tearing fog into grey rags.

Windblown pines,
arthritic sentinels of the shore,
guard its secrets from the sea's
unrelenting inquiries
and sigh in conspiratorial whispers
like bewhiskered old men retelling
oft-told tales.

Stepping lightly,
I walk down long logs
hoping an agate will wink at me.
My hair is salted by the wind.
Eyes down,
I wait for God.

Clothing My Heart

Why does my heart ache?
I seek to understand the hollow in my chest,
Trying on labels like clothes.
Regret?
Loneliness?
Disconnection?
Rejection?
Sorrow?
Weltschmerz (how chic!)?
I look in the mirror:
none seem to fit.
Too pat,
Too patterned,
Too tight,
Too loose,
Too long,
Too ludicrous.
All costumes,
clown suits,
chimeras.
What's the naked truth?
Do I need to peel off my skin
to see inside my soul?
Will I find layers of lies?
Am I the layer or the laid?
The liar?
I will learn to love this,
my many-layered self.

(Be)Longing

I want my old self back.
The one that plunged deep into dreams,
careless of consequences.
The one that embraced love fearlessly,
giving without hesitation --
no thought to wherewithal's or whither's,
no fingers surreptitiously counting entries
on some karmic balance sheet.

A self that drank in the sea,
saw horizons beckoning,
smelled the sweetness of salt
on sun-drenched skin --
never imagining the susurration of waves
could whisper a language of loss,
the melding of blue into blue
at the edge of the world
signal annihilation, not exhilaration.

I want the wand that wreaked
this spell on my perspective,
transforming desire into drudgery,
the glitter of the unknown
to a haze of arbitrary choices.
The spell that stole my faith in Meaning,
reducing it to a word with seven letters --
as random as a cloud of ashes
puffed by a gust of wind.

I'll wave it in reverse --
Not reliving, but relieving!
Releasing my heart from its suspension
in futility, like a bubble of foam
so I can run once again with the waves,
build castles in sand,
be aware of the incoming tide and not caring.
Simply focusing on creation and delight!