My friend Marten who wrote the review for Avatar shared his poem with me the other day and it really impressed me. To me, this is a beautiful expression of the Lover archetype with spatters of King. What does it mean to you? Do tell in the comments below.
Oh, I almost forgot – Marten’s website Wake project is finally up, where he talks about the reasons why we should take better care of the oceans that support us. Check it out.
Seven Songs From The Sea
With passionate lips
My waves kiss your shores.
Surging…
Salty…
I kiss every curve.
Wash over you endlessly
Caress each cove.
My weight presses down.
Delights in rise and fall.
I lick my fingers, and
Linger.
Retreat: playful and slow.
Before surging over you again.
Land:
Endlessly immersed in me.
Land:
You trembled in my boundlessness.
With tender lips
My waves kiss your shores.
I give you life
I give you love…
I am your very home,
Together on this world for millennia
Endless shifting in this geomorphic waltz of fluids, solids and fire.
Switching seats as we follow the moon.
Although we dance together
I sense that now:
You step alone.
What once was side by side could simply ebb.
Footprints waiting for my tide, aching in their decay.
But you need me more than ever
To feed your hungry bodies
To fuel your greedy minds
Drink the life I give you.
Leave nothing behind.
With pained lips
My waves kiss your shores.
You tear at me with net and line
Take…
Everything
Quotas and bycatch:
That’s how you love me
Metal replaces flesh as machines rake through me.
And I
Fight back with storms
and Salt.
Drag and rust your evil hulls into my depths.
Yet you return:
Endless swarms of my lost children
Suckle on this ancient welt
So damaging and deep
That it makes my depths seem like the skin of stars
It was the wind who whispered “Earth” to me, “That’s what they call you now.”
Damn you ‘Earth’, We’re a planet blue
Is there no room left for me
Though I’m most of us
And you fear drowning in my arms.
With violent lips
My waves kiss your shores.
Am I a blue mirror for you to reach for more of the above?
Look through my surface!
Let my allure pull you,
Fear nothing but your love!
Close this distance between us
Return on my tide
Rediscover me around you
Look away from yourselves and back to the blue
Steal glances out the portholes as you kiss and rock.
Drop your hand over the side and trail your fingers through me…
But…
As skin and tissue collide
Faces turn together,
Your love and hate so wide.
With so many more of you:
Seven.
Seven billion at last count.
There is now less space for the places where you used to call home
And you:
See yourselves
Vanity seeps deep the more you strip bare these ancient bones
And you stand back to admire the cracking skeleton that remains
Nodding content as though it is the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen.
While crowding yourselves in the flesh of each other.
And I’m here to provoke:
There’s more to us than you.
With sad lips
My waves kiss your shores.
In my hurt
I returned
Begged
To tell of my sea-creatures pain
I spoke
But your ears refuse all but the romance of my waves.
So I shake my mane of seaweed hair
I tilt my head back and
Scream my silent screams.
You used to speak for us
Even now, with your lungs so full of the oxygen I give you:
Your breath remains lost
And our dreams have come to nothing
All dried up in your sand.
Now I’m reduced to the edge of your ancient charts
Where silver leviathans lie
Forgotten in your hearts.
And as gill, blowhole, beak and lip twist savagely on tight lines
Fins are cut through cartilage for your pleasure
Soaked wings drown in nets so wide
Their mouths could swallow your town in them
You dare to call us ‘monsters’
There are so few now
You’ve taken them from me
They call to you
Cry for you
When will you let them be?
Understand that they…
They are you too.
With lips so dry
My waves kiss your shores.
It’s time you sat back beside me
Tilted your face to my mirror
And saw yourself framed in the heavy clouds
Remember that you share me
And I share you.
So, choose well what you take
Put back what you consume
And…
Remember our lust.
As my waves wash over you,
My salt tingle
Will linger.
Form tears of joy on your coast.
Every drop
Will touch the corners of your crevices.
My wake
Will embrace you forever.
Forget-me-not
This beauty blue you live on.
Blue:
The cyan marble in the black
You’ve seen in a thousand vintage satellite images.
Blue:
Like the clouds that you wish for
On a sunny day.
With ceaseless lips
My waves kiss your shores.
So, trail your fingers through me
Check your air
Fall back in love with me
Fill your lungs with wonders
And tell your neighbours what you learned
Come back to me
I’m hopeful.
Spare a thought for us,
My surf awaits it’s return kiss
My deep awaits your lust
Sink slow slowly into me
My deepest place of wonder
Let’s dance!
We’re in this one together
Endless in romance.
Come back
My waves kiss your shores.