Shadows by the seashore...
A word then, (for I will conquer it)
The word final, superior to all,
Subtle, sent up-what is it?-I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?
Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whispered me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak, Lisped to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my aroused child’s heart,
But edging near as privately for me, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.
Which I do not forget,
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs at random,
My own songs awaked from that hour,
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside)
The sea whispered me.
-- Walt Whitman, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking v. 160-184
I though I had banished you, my sibilant shade, a darker muse of latter days. Yet here we stand again, face to face, by the shallow seashore. The water snakes around our feet, slinking its cool grip around our flesh amid promises of cool oblivion. Why do I indulge you still? Ever have you been a frigid siren, awaiting me by ocean deep, singing only when I care to listen. Yet still I seek your embrace. It is natural then, that all creatures, great and low, inevitably yearn for that hallowed umbra, the eternal womb at the heart of existence? What entices us so, that we strive for a cessation of that which pulses most vitally in our veins?
My moods these days seem as nebulous as the clouds in my head. Like a spinning top, dancing and skirting about the edge of oblivion, teetering ever closer to a definite existence but always veering short of absolution. I do not fear the end, no more than any living creature's primal instincts can allow. Yet I lack any reason to pursue the alternate wholeheartedly.
I've taken to wearing shades lately, yet still basking in the sun. Is the sublime light too much for me? Or am I too accustomed to seeing the world in all too subtle hues?
Mom's volunteered me for one of her client's jobs. Apparently Sari is an image consultant or something. I wonder what her visions of me will entail...I've already heard from the psychics, the priests, the rabbis, the professors, the relatives, what life will she conjure up for my amusement? Will it entail rivers of gold and success? Will I have that Midas touch? Pfui, why would I want it? There's hell for you, surrounded by all the wealth in the world, and no one to share it with, to give it to, no reason to have any of it.
Heh. Whenever I go to the beach, I always watch the sandpipers. Darting about the sands, poking, prodding, one eye to the ground, looking for a tasty morsel, the other, firmly fixed upon the ice blue waters, awaiting a shift in the tides.
The word final, superior to all,
Subtle, sent up-what is it?-I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?
Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whispered me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak, Lisped to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my aroused child’s heart,
But edging near as privately for me, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.
Which I do not forget,
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs at random,
My own songs awaked from that hour,
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside)
The sea whispered me.
-- Walt Whitman, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking v. 160-184
I though I had banished you, my sibilant shade, a darker muse of latter days. Yet here we stand again, face to face, by the shallow seashore. The water snakes around our feet, slinking its cool grip around our flesh amid promises of cool oblivion. Why do I indulge you still? Ever have you been a frigid siren, awaiting me by ocean deep, singing only when I care to listen. Yet still I seek your embrace. It is natural then, that all creatures, great and low, inevitably yearn for that hallowed umbra, the eternal womb at the heart of existence? What entices us so, that we strive for a cessation of that which pulses most vitally in our veins?
My moods these days seem as nebulous as the clouds in my head. Like a spinning top, dancing and skirting about the edge of oblivion, teetering ever closer to a definite existence but always veering short of absolution. I do not fear the end, no more than any living creature's primal instincts can allow. Yet I lack any reason to pursue the alternate wholeheartedly.
I've taken to wearing shades lately, yet still basking in the sun. Is the sublime light too much for me? Or am I too accustomed to seeing the world in all too subtle hues?
Mom's volunteered me for one of her client's jobs. Apparently Sari is an image consultant or something. I wonder what her visions of me will entail...I've already heard from the psychics, the priests, the rabbis, the professors, the relatives, what life will she conjure up for my amusement? Will it entail rivers of gold and success? Will I have that Midas touch? Pfui, why would I want it? There's hell for you, surrounded by all the wealth in the world, and no one to share it with, to give it to, no reason to have any of it.
Heh. Whenever I go to the beach, I always watch the sandpipers. Darting about the sands, poking, prodding, one eye to the ground, looking for a tasty morsel, the other, firmly fixed upon the ice blue waters, awaiting a shift in the tides.