Some days the sea

                          by Richard Blanco

The sea is never the same twice. Today

the waves open their lions-mouths hungry

for the shore and I feel the earth helpless.

Some days their foamy edges are lace

at my feet, the sea a sheet of green silk.

Sometimes the shore brings souvenirs

from a storm, I sift spoils of sea grass:

find a broken finger of coral, a torn fan,

examine a sponge's hollow throat, watch

a man-of-war die a sapphire in the sand.

Some days there's nothing but sand

quiet as snow, I walk, eyes on the wind

sometimes laden with silver tasting salt,

sometimes still as the sun. Some days

the sun is a dollop of honey and raining

light on the sea glinting diamond dust,

sometimes there are only clouds, clouds—

sometimes solid as continents drifting

across the sky, other times wispy, white

roses that swirl into tigers, into cathedrals,

into hands, and I remember some days

I'm still a boy on this beach, wanting

to catch a seagull, cup a tiny silver fish,

build a perfect sand castle. Some days I am

a teenager blind to death even as I watch

waves seep into nothingness. Most days

I'm a man tired of being a man, sleeping

in the care of dusk's slanted light, or a man

scared of being a man, seeing some god

in the moonlight streaming over the sea.

Some days I imagine myself walking

this shore with feet as worn as driftwood,

old and afraid of my body. Someday,

I suppose I'll return someplace like waves

trickling through the sand, back to sea

without any memory of being, but if

I could choose eternity, it would be here

aging with the moon, enduring in the space

between every grain of sand, in the cusp

of every wave, and every seashell's hollow.  

Richard Blanco is to read one of his poems at the Inauguration of President Obama tomorrow, 21 January.  For more of his on-line poetry, go to http://www.floatingwolfquarterly.com/6/richard-blanco/#0/contents,  and several other sites listed on his webpage here.