On a completely unrelated note (that is, completely unrelated to much of anything else I've been writing about lately), I've been finding myself homesick for the ocean. We went to Seattle a couple weeks ago to buy new clothes for Jimmy, who is in the midst of a long-overdue growth spurt. The weather wasn't great, so we didn't make it to the beach, and we never got close enough to Puget Sound for me to smell it.
Really, though, I'm missing the ocean. As in, the coast. Sadly, I think it's a trip that will have to wait a while. At least I can dream about last time I was there...
Landlocked
The woman who lives next door
has never seen the sea
she surveys this green valley
two hundred miles inland
carved out of shrub steppe
by a deceptively narrow, strong river
and is satisfied.
And I am satisfied, too
for this farm town is a fine place
to raise a family, to lie grounded
for a time
in the loamy bosom of all earth.
But it is not the place I was born
not the place circled by gulls
where I smelled sea in every breath
where I roamed rocky beaches
where stony earth embraces fluid ocean
where I will live again before I die.
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