My hair was still wet when I sat down, shivering, at the antique table in the warm common room of the old Gosby House Inn in Pacific Grove. It was late afternoon and a cold rain had rolled in from the ocean, darkened the sky and sent Tammy and me scrambling indoors after being out on a windy beach in Carmel much of the day. The fireplace was churning out waves of warmth to melt the chill and start drying our clothes. It was March, and the weather enshrouding Monterey Bay was temperamental, moody and always cold, especially the surf.
I’d been scribbling notes for years to write a poem about the ocean that I hoped would express the depth of my love for it. The sea had always been, for me, a living being; one with whom I’ve felt an almost human-like intimacy. I’d spent a number of years in the U.S. Navy serving on three warships that took me across the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic Oceans, the Mediterranean Sea, through the Strait of Gibraltar and, on the other side of the world, the Strait of Malacca, a narrow sea lane between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra on our way to Africa; among many other channels, straits and rivers around the globe.
The sea was my closest companion during a particularly painful time in my life. My first marriage had fallen apart shortly after I entered the Navy. And aside from a few fellow sailors with whom I’d struck up casual friendships, I spent most of my days, and especially my nights, lonely and depressed. I turned to writing poetry as a salve; a way of molding my emotions – love, anger, fear, sorrow – into word images that I hoped would help me make sense of my life.
The rough notes I’d collected over the years provided a good starting point for writing this particular poem. But I needed to step into the waves again so I could feel it; the smell and taste of the salt air, the hiss of the spray and the deep rumbling sounds further out. Tammy and I went to the beach at the end of Ocean Avenue in Carmel. It was nearly deserted this time of year. With her jacket zipped up tightly, Tammy wiggled her toes in the water. I kicked off my sneakers, rolled up my jeans and waded knee-deep into the icy surf with a pen and a yellow pad. The fog cleared up from time to time to allow shafts of sunlight to penetrate and reflect the blues and greens of the surface, only to be swallowed up again in the gray mists. My hands turned purple and stiff as I scratched down my impressions as fast as I could.
Then the rain came and we retreated back to Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove and the inviting snugness of the Gosby. It was at the antique table that I started writing my poem.
The poem, which I call “I Splash Giddily,” is printed below, courtesy of Point Lobos Magazine where it was first printed. My sincere thanks go out to the Point Lobos Foundation and its Executive Director Anna Patterson for gladly giving me permission to present it here. If you get a chance to visit Point Lobos California State Reserve, do it! You can find it three miles south of Carmel on Highway 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway. With its meandering trails and the unparalleled beauty of its coastline, Tammy and I consider Point Lobos to be one of our favorite places in the world.
I Splash Giddily
By Larry Alan Brown
I splash giddily in the chilled March surf,
My remembered toes and feet and ankles naked,
To the late winter currents of Monterey Bay,
The pools invigorate my cells, my disjoined nerves,
I seek outward, spirit gazing in dull sunlight.
To the north, the land is a low plateau,
Carpeted emerald, ending at a rocky ledge,
The sea surface undulates gracefully,
The water is pale green nearest shore,
Turning azure in the deeper reaches.
Buoyant, I peer to the horizon and Mistress Oceana,
I sense and smell her cool, inviting breath,
It comes as swift bracing breezes, sea winds kissing,
Perfumed in saline splendor, licking shadows of my hair,
Reddening skin on cheeks and chin transformed,
Mistress Deep, whose endless curves I’ve well-travel’d,
She, with whom I’ve pitched and rolled in exotic places,
She, who in all her moods, caressed me roughly and softly,
She, whose swollen crests I’ve sailed, explored ‘til spent,
She, in whose tides I’ve seen the firmament of stars reflected.
She calls and wakens my life force willing,
Her million-voice song is at once a roar and whisper,
At once a terrible shout and lullaby,
At once a primordial thunder and soothing hush,
Her scented song emerges from the deepest places,
From submerged and secret, shadowed canyons,
Spiraling up and up, through dark layers and living tendrils,
A million songs, through the surface bursting!
“Rise up, O wave children!” she cries, “Gather speed!”
I see them! Wave children rising!
In great fluid ridges, they form, row after row,
Beautiful in their rolling, gliding power,
They leap swiftly, laughing and shouting,
In a joyous, riotous, rush to shore!
I laugh and shout, too! I beckon wildly!
The wave children surge from the boisterous sea,
Their glassy-mirrored blue-green faces shining,
Dashing and racing from Mother Ocean’s anxious lap.
In their headlong haste, the wave children bow,
Too far forward leaning, brightly beaming,
Wave tops crystalline in watery whiteness,
Headfirst, they cascade into a roiling, spreading sheet,
Foaming bubbles and spitting-fizzing spray!
They swirl and eddy ‘round my sundered motes,
My altered dust in cool delight, embracing,
Leaves tickling slicks of froth on my flesh reborn,
“O, Father!” they cry, “Mother sends her love!”
“I know, I know, I feel her,” I sigh.
I hear their Mother’s tender chant, ancient as Terra,
Summoning, gentle, warm, compelling,
“Come, Father! Come with us!” the children kiss,
Smiling, we cling and slide back down the beach together,
Wet, dark sand glistening in our hallowed wake,
My scattered earthly bread, coaxed outward by the loving tide,
Spreads and swells and revels in the amniotic sea,
A timeless sacrament to life and mortal seasons,
My joyous shout echoes through and fills the endless void!
“I fill the void! I am the sea!
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