[Sea Goddess painting by Dusan at paintingsilove.com]
Oceana
is in love
with the sea.
Her heart swells
with the
rising tide,
and lets go
as the combers
break
upon the shore,
her breath
in cadence
with
their eternal
ebb and flow.
Salt spray
and spindrift
curl her hair
and keep fresh
her vision.
She cannot
breathe
away from
the smell
of the sea.
She dines
richly on
fiddlehead greens
and sea urchin,
set out on
plates made of
kelp.
Sometimes
a bright-eyed otter
joins her
at her repast,
while,
a ways offshore,
seals with curious
gazes
wonder
what's for dinner.
Oceana
sings
an evening song
as the sun slips down
behind the horizon
and the sky
is suffused
with crimson
and scattered stars.
Then she curls up
in her
driftwood shelter
and is
lulled to sleep
by the
hypnotic breaking
of the waves,
the surging,
steady rhythmic
sursurration
of the sea,
pulsing like
a giant
maternal heart;
the sea goddess
of the underworld
feeds her
every
midnight
dream.
