Ocean Secrets

by Carlotta McKnight

Ahhhhhhhhh, the breeze was so gentle and the sun so warm
Yet, there was a roar from the ocean filling the air
Waves lapping at the shore one by one
Each one rising and rising with such a flair….
It seemed I could see beyond the horizon
Imagining all that could be or ever was
I wanted to share it with all I loved
I stood there taking in all that I could
Feeling like a freed captive bird from a cage
I spilled my thoughts and then ,my soul
Releasing my secrets and inner soul to the gentle breeze
To be delivered to the waves, washed, cleansed , and set free
Freely I gave to the sea my raging storm
That had consumed my soul for so long…
For a brief moment I held my breath
Hoping time could stand still as it was right then
A moment in time filled with peace, comfort, and warmth
As I walked, I felt the gentle breeze following me along the shore
As I bent to pick up grains of sand
I felt the breeze whisking them from my hand
Just as quickly as the sifting sand fell
And was carried back to the ocean floor
My time here at the ocean was coming to an end….
And I would leave, leaving behind a part of me
That would forever remain a part of the mighty sea..

All Day Long

by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.
    My boy, he went to sea, long and long ago,
    Curls of brown were slipping underneath his cap,
    He looked at me from blue and steely eyes;
    Natty, straight and true, he stepped away,
    My boy, he went to sea.
All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.

The Depths

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman (1865 - 1900)

Sublime and wonderful art thou, O deep,
Illustrious ocean, vast unmeasured waste!
Lost in thy contemplation, I do seem
Even as a grain of sand upon thy beach,
That shouldst thou reach thy giant arms to grasp
Would melt away in thy dissolving foam,
Nor yet be missed among the myriads left;
Yet in thy calms and tempests, I can read
The moods and passions of the human soul;
Nor are they changing winds and tides more real
That those that sweep and sway the depths of thought.

Calm is thy breast today, thou fitful main,
And yet perchance before the eastern star
Sheds o'er thy surface her supernal beams,
High on yon crags thy maddened spray shall dash
And the wild roar of elemental war
Shall cause the dwellers on thy cliffs to quake
And the brave mariner to grow sick at heart.

Why is this murmuring, this wild unrest?
This never-ending conflict with thyself,
As if thou wouldst burst through thy massive gates
And fling thy treasures through celestial space,
Strew the pale Occident with coral sprays
And the blue zenith with ten-thousand gems;
Or scatter pearls throughout the Orient flames;
Or yet go seething through yon crested heights
And with a voice like Gabriel's trumpet, tell
The pent-up secrets of thy hidden depths
Unto the flaming beacon of the day?

'Tis vain--with all thy vast gigantic power,
Thou canst but cast a few frail treasures forth,
Perchance a seaweed spray or tinted shell,
Dripping and glistening from thy briny surf,
Cast out upon the sands, that wheresoe'er
Fate or caprice may bear its fragile form,
A whispered song from its pink lips is heard
That seems to speak of caverns deep and lone
Sunk in thy heaving bosom, restless sea,
That eye hath never seen, nor yet a ray
From the bright flickering lamps of Heaven has pierced.

Thus do the surges of the spirit rise
And dash against their narrow prison walls,
Clap their rapt wings and long for liberty;
Or in a vague unrest beat to and fro,
Forever striving to yield up the things
That pent in their own beings will not rest
Ah! like the sea, they only render up
Perchance a thought from out their hidden caves,
That, like the sea-shell, murmurs of the depths
That slept before undreamed of far below;
Within the human soul lie depths as deep
As ever slept within the ocean's breast,
And heights that rise beyond the breaker's crest
In the vain wish to pass their narrow bound.

Lo, o'er the depths of ocean and of soul
Breathes forth a voice that calms their wild unrest:
"Peace, be thou still," "to me thou shalt yield up,
The garnered fullness of thy hidden things;
To me the deep shall pour her treasures out;
To me the ocean shall her secrets tell;
At my command the sea shall burst her gates
And the chained treasures of the depths come forth;"
So shall the soul break forth at last in song;
So shall her pent-up longings be unloosed
To sweep adown the aisles of endless time;
So shall the depths therein in endless praise
Pour out their garnered fullness unto God.