If I were a river......

If I were a river, I would sing the sun up every morning. I would dance with delight over rock and chasm, plunge down in cascading waterfalls, then widen, spreading out between the swollen banks, slowing my pace towards noon to swirl placidly, catch my breath in quieter shallows,  I, lost in reverie.

If I were a river, I'd burble and babble and bubble in baby brooks, poke stubby fingers into soft mudbanks, investigating all the secret hollows. I'd sing lustily in mid-afternoon, picking up speed, leaping over boulder and chasm, my voice like the roar of huge engines, like a plane flying low. Later, towards evening, I'd smooth and soften, silky and rippling, inviting toes to dabble.

If I were a river, I'd reflect the moon's midnight smile. Stars would wink at me and I'd wink back, the night our shared secret, while all the humans slept and missed the magic.

If I were a river, I'd begin in the mountains, tumbling down its sides, trickle to torrent, leaping crevasses, gathering force then hurtling over ledges, plunging downwards in waterfalls that merge at the riverbed and, with one intent, swirl slowly, spreading wide, wider, little tributaries venturing off and back, rejoining the common flow, the great push surging to the sea.

When I got there, with a joyous rush I'd know that I was at both the end and the beginning of my journey. Gratefully, I'd sink myself deep into the sand, just waiting for the tide to swoop in and carry me off home.

The Cauldron

photo of sunrise at South Chestermans by Stephanie

At Poetry Jam, the prompt this week is: Water. Always this one body of water calls to me, since those glorious years when I walked the beach daily, in joy and gratitude.


At the base of the rocks
on Frank's Island,
the waves meet in a 
swirling whirling gyre
called The Cauldron,
making a sound 
as powerful 
as fire
and it spins,
as if it is  being
stirred to a chanting croon
by a black robed figure
with a long-handled 
wooden spoon,
as, wave after wave,
the sea 
comes crashing in.


Look down.
See the roiling circle made?
How waves break 
against the rocks,
and shatter,
tide pools laid bare
full of small life
that matters,
witches' brew,
frothing,
bubbling,
mesmerizing you,
till one could almost
topple into
its eternal stew.


One early morning
we gathered there
at dawn.
Between island and shore,
a labyrinth was drawn,
that we walked,
me behind,you before,
waiting for sunrise,
when winter would be 
no more.
Gail and Clay,
in cloaks, 
walked across 
the strip of land,
Clay carrying a lighted torch
within his proud 
eight year old hand,
rolled tube of paper
lit and smoking,
as in days of olde,
sparks flying fast,
smell of scorched cloth,
as we stood smiling
in the windy morning 
cold.


As we completed 
the circular path,
fine-drawn,
the water was 
covering our feet,
and the path we 
walked upon.
We had to dash  
before the waves 
rolled in, head-on,
both sides of the tide
in the middle met;
in only moments,
the labyrinth 
was gone.


It was Spring Equinox,
the coming of the light,
after winter's storm
dispelling dark of night.
Surrounding us
was nature's 
wild array:
glorious sea,
rolling hills,
long sandy beach,
the place I thought
I would forever stay,
each day the world
all painted
pink and new,
spread there
like a banquet
just for me
and you.


The song of the sea
eternally
sings to me,
cry of a gull,
scent of salt 
and seaweed
on the air,
white-maned
wild-horse waves
galloping in 
with mighty roar.
I'll remember,
I'll remember,
in my heart
forevermore,
the joy of living
by water
on that
wild and 
western shore.

Oceana

[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.

Wild Woman and the Sea

Over the years,

Wild Woman

has watched

young brides

get married

at the edge

of the sea,

thinking

what a perfect spot

it was

in which

to pledge

one's troth.

Now she stands

on the shore,

alone as always,

content,

her heart

full of

the ocean's song,

and she weds

the sea

itself.



Traveler Remembers

Traveler

remembers

an evening

at the beach

years ago,

when the entire sky,

filled with

pink puffballs of cloud,

looked

exactly as

the floor of Heaven

must appear.

Almost, she could hear

angel choirs.

Instead,

she listened to

her heart,

which was lonely,

back then,

with love,

with no one

to give it to.

She thought of

the one she loved

who did not love her.

She thought of

a lifetime,

so much of it

spent alone.

In the end,

it's her love

of the sea

and a black wolf

who loved her

that made

everything

come right.

Song of the Sea

Day 25 of the Soul Card Journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin
at http://www.touchdrawing.com/

Perched on a cliff

above the sea,

Traveler communes

with the

midnight moon.

Bioluminescence

outlines

both sea

and shore

with a magical

radiance

she has never seen

before.

Traveler basks there

for a time,

feeling an

inner glow,

sea spray

welcome

on her face

as breakers

crash and churn

against the

blackened

rocks below.

Though she

must turn away

and leave

the sea she loves

behind,

 she carries

its song

within,

its waves

advancing

and retreating

forever

in her mind.

Winter Storm

[image from google - djvibe.com]

Last night

on the news,

they showed

our beach,

roiling

in winter storm.

How we loved

going to

the wildest shore

we could find,

in winter:

Combers,

or South Beach.

We'd trek

joyously

for miles,

salt spray

in our faces,

ears full

of wind

and

the mighty

sound

of the sea.

Last night,

I longed so

to be there,

with you,

once again,

one more time

to watch you

loping along

the beach

with your loopy grin,

and your eyes

on fire,

tongue out,

splashing

in and out

of the waves,

in total

joy.

In my dreams,

that's where

we are,

still,

heart in heart,

paw in hand,

two wild creatures,

hearts

full of joy

and

the pounding

pulse

of the sea.

Remembering Jonathan

My friend Lynette posted a haiku and photos today for the Poets United think tank prompt: wings. She referred to Jonathan Livingston Seagull and reminded me about how pivotal that book was to my own odyssey to the sea.

Back in the Day, when I first read Jonathan, I was on a quest for personal freedom, having already experienced a fair amount of oppression in my marriage. Then I saw the movie, sound track by Neil Diamond, and was blown away by the pulsating beat of the music, the mesmerizing beauty of the images on the screen, and the resonating truth of the words Jonathan was speaking. I didn't yet understand that I was an ocean person. That came two years later, when I was making a car trip around the province. The Rockies, the Interior, all were beautiful, or pretty or pleasant to pass through. But when we turned the nose of the car up the Sunshine Coast, a short ferry trip across from the Lower Mainland, I began to erupt like a geyser as we turned each bend and there before me was the forest, the rugged coastline.

Soon I lived there, right on the ocean, and that is another story. In less than a year, we had to leave, and before long I was inland, raising my kids alone in Kelowna. I began to collect ceramic seagulls. I hung photos and quotes on my walls. I even took up bicycling and pedalled way out of town to the dump where - oddly - there were inland seagulls. I yearned for the ocean all those years.

The man I most remember gifted me one Christmas with three life sized cement seagulls perched on a huge nubbly piece of driftwood. When one wing emerged from the wrappings, I flung myself at him and smothered him in  hugs and kisses. Those seagulls went with me everywhere and, finally, to the front porch of my trailer in Tofino. I left them there, where they belonged, when I had to leave.

I stopped collecting seagulls in Tofino. I didn't need them, they were all around me. I had the real thing. I remember one winter afternoon, when I was the only human walking the beach at Combers, gray sky lowering, and a seagull flew past low, right beside my shoulder. I felt like I was in an outtake of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and smiled to think what a long journey it had been, and to know I had finally - finally! - come home.

I had forgotten Jonathan for a while, immersed as I am in my rural existence. It is time to play that album again, time to watch the movie. Time to remember that time of all times in my life, when I lived the truth of Richard Bach's words. When I reached high, when I flew farther than I ever had before. When  once I soared.

SANCTUARY BY THE SEA

[On the topic of the think tank prompt : Sanctuary at Poets United, this is an edited excerpt from the book I wrote about the twenty-year journey my very gifted son and I made after he was stricken with schizophrenia at seventeen. The night the first phone call came in, I went to the ocean. It has always been my sanctuary, the place where cares were subdued by the sound of the waves, where I gained strength to carry on. I have not yet submitted this manuscript; it needs a solid editing. But here is a bit of it.]

The night my son collapsed with schizophrenia, I went to the shore. My heart was aching; the familiar, resigned stoicism with which I had endured so many crises was creeping over me again. I was bracing myself for certain heartbreak, clinging with all my strength to the comfort I found in the sound of the ocean rolling in, wave on endless wave, upon the sand.

Pacing up and down the water's edge, nervous and shaking, I thought of my gentle, happy-natured son as he had been when he was little. Jeff was my third child, always laughing. His disposition had always been sunny.....In our house of four noisy children, he was my gentle, sensitive one, the one I felt was most like me.

Jeff was an Old Soul, one who lived gently and kindly on the planet. He seemed to have brought wisdom with him from wherever he was before he came to me. Now that laughing, tender little boy was a lean, fragile six-footer, seventeen years old and in the psych ward.

Apparently he had run out of my mother's house, where he was staying for the summer, racing through the darkened, night-time city streets to the hospital, where he had checked himself in.

My sister called me from Vancouver. I had to come...... Hospital staff said he was psychotic, suicidal. They needed me to sign the consent forms; they could not begin treatment until I came...........

On the way, I stopped at the shore, preparing for what came next, pacing up and down with an aching heart, nervous and shaking, trying to gather strength to see my son through whatever lay ahead.

"At least I have this," I told myself. "They cant take this away from me, no matter what happens." It had taken me twenty years to get here to Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Living here had been my dream for half my life, and it appeared that, once again, the cost of my choosing would be high, for me and my children. But this time I had the ocean's roar in my ears to give me solace.

..........That Jeff, with his big blue eyes and ready smile, his kind and gentle heart, should be suffering this was unfair and terribly painful. But I felt myself strengthening to meet him on this unfamiliar ground. My life had taught me to withstand. I would be there for him. I would see him through, and I would take my comfort in the beauty of the shore. I would replenish my stores of peace, the peace I had sought for so many years and struggled so hard to win, by letting the sursurration of the waves wash through me, through my ears, my brain, my skin, my being, until I was as calm as the lull between waves, as strong and silent as the smooth stones scattered along the ocean's shore, as patient as the sand dollar that spins its house from the sand and grit around it and carries it within.

I would take my peaceful presence to my son, to the city, to his bedside, and I would sit with him, be there with him, as he made his painful journey. I set my mind firmly in the direction of hope. He would get through this. We would get through this - together.

Somehow I knew that being there beside the sea would give me the strength to get through the days ahead...........My spirit had been hungering for ocean and nature. Now even more did I need it, to withstand the distress of being alive, the anguish of a mother whose child was in pain.

I balanced the guilt [ of having moved there] with rationalization. If I had stayed in Kelowna in a job I hated, Jeff's breakdown still may have occured. Then I would not have had the comfort of being in the place I loved to sustain and nourish me. But what would sustain Jeff, in his lonely misery? The guilt was something I would have to work on. After a lifetime of putting my childrens' needs first, it was a bitter blow that in the same moment I had made this one choice for myself, my child had been struck down.

I knew as I turned my back and walked down the trail towards the car, that no matter what happened, I could not give this place up. I needed it too much, had waited for it too long, to ever leave.