Going Back to the Sea

By Clara Blair

Born within sight of New York harbor,
Child of Coney Island and the Staten Island ferry,
I had been landlocked for decades -
By choice, but landlocked nonetheless.
Down the street from the house where I grew up,
The Statue of Liberty was my neighbor.
Summer evenings we sat on our stoop
And watched her torch light up against the fading sunset.
She lifted up her lamp beside the golden door to the West,
Where my future lay.

The road from Brooklyn to the Texas Gulf Coast was long,
With many switchbacks and dead-ends,
But I was tired and feeling trapped before I took it.
Truth, I'd heard, will make you free,
But which truth, and how to find it?
Knowledge is power, I'd also heard,
So I spent my early years gathering it,
Storing it like some mad squirrel fearing winter.
And I'd used it to change my life.

Now I was coming back again to the sea -
Another sea, but the sea nonetheless.
After years on the plains of Kansas,
Through Oklahoma and the cities of Texas,
After glorious journeys to the Rocky Mountains
And the high desert of New Mexico - to the sea!

The trip was long, but I was tired long before it started.
As we moved from point to point
Along the wandering lines on the map,
Scenic stops were curious distractions,
Bits of history and geography
Keeping me from the sea.

Though I could smell the ocean,
The beach was not in sight.
When we finally boarded the ferry,
The familiar lurch and purr,
Aided by the cries of the gulls,
Began to lift my spirits.

When I finally reached the beach,
Clouds and chill winds kept it empty
For the gulls, terns, stilts, sandpipers,
Herons, pelicans and me -
Primal and peaceful, even with waves crashing
As my toes sank home in the sand.

© 2003 Clara Blair, September 19, 2003