From 'Sonnets to the Sea' by John Blight

Down from the Country

When we came down from the country, we were strangers to the sea.

The rise and fall of waters without rain,

the lunglike breathing of the estuary

caused our amazement; and the white stain

of salt on the rocks, when the tide receded,

where we were used to dark mud that a flood leaves behind,

held us enthralled; and we needed

some mental adjustment which people noticed. When the mind

is confronted by such magnitudes of sight and sound

there is no mask for refuge in frown or grimace;

but the face looks blank, as if it were dragged up, drowned.

How much loneliness is there in a different place,

out of one's shell, out of all knowledge, to be caught

out of dullness of self by such alien thought?

A Cup of Sea Water

I had no thought for a poem, so I wrote

casually of the sea. The sea is 

a common subject, and easily

described -- for who doesn't know of a boat

and sand and rocks and what the sea is?

I wrote of the sea, and I spoke of it breezily;

but not in a poem -- for who doesn't know

that a poem couldn't capture the sea,

save as a cup holds it? Then the sea tastes

warm and not unlike blood; and though

it has water's colourless anonymity,

like blood it is all too savage to drink, and wastes

and is thrown away, once you taste its fierce flavour

which is all I will you to taste, my few words to savour.

A Child's Essay about the Sea

Tides come in, tides go out. There is all about us

the movement of waters, the motions of fuss.

Even the shallow ripples discuss in whispers of hush

the boat pushing into the beach. There is a rush

and surge of waters to tell you of its landfall.

The sea is never silent. The sun, the moon, and all

heavenly bodies are dancing upon it. The sea

is never still. Be it a cloud's image, or be

it a passing gull in its mirror of calm.

There, in the distance, is a tall waterspout like a palm, 

or a whale spouting. Children shouting along the beach;

and dogs barking -- gulls quite unable to teach

dogs that dogs can't catch gulls. A constant turmoil

of tides; disorders which the steadfastness of the land

    cannot foil.

And about Phosphorescence

The round tank of the ocean reaches far

as the eye can see, and contains every star

and the image of the moon. They are

constantly filling it with light. Swirl and oar

and their phosphorous glows. Step ashore

and slap the wet sand, and, once more,

a repetition of stars. They have been filling the ocean

with light, all their light-years. A potion 

of time and starshine the sea is. The notion

of night at sea as dismally black is a joke.

Not since Phosphorous, the morning star, first woke

has there been any cessation of light

pouring into the ocean. It is just as bright

in its fastest deeps, where fish seem alight.

The Sea and Infinity

He sat by the sea, and he sighed, 'Infinity.

Ah, Infinity!' But there was another side

to the ocean -- an eastern shore, a north, a south...

each was a limit, a boundary

to his knowledge; and the ocean, wide

as it was, was not infinite. Strange word of mouth

-- Infinity. For there was the sea linked molecule by

    molecule;

and the sky, atom to atom; and space

by each wave-length of field and field; and all

of nature the rational, natural order and rule

of space-time was finite in time or sapce.

And there was nothing that he could call

infinite but Nothing. And what is Nothing?

He has not seen it. It is not the sea. His own imagining.

Meridians

For which centuries there may be tracts

of ocean never approached, only

netted by meridians. In these lonely

castnesses such netting protects

them from disintegration into space.

They were, and are, will always be some place

in the ocean where a ship might pass

or a plane plummet, and may be found

entangled in the net. As the years pass,

some time we'll find in the net a rock, a fragment of ground

thrust our of the sea by submarine volcano.

It is the net will hold it in its place:

the net we've cast around -- a flimsy lace

to hold five continents; yet, strong enough.

The Anchor

Know then, the only joy of an anchor -- to be strong,

have iron arms, and be long

immersed holding by cable a ship

like an iron kite in the blue, deep

waters of a port. Know then, the anguish

of its cross -- to lie as stone, while fish

hover and flutter like leaces, and love

botes, in a barnacle, a red groove

into its flukes. To be the 'pick'

in common talk, thrown over through slick

to the dirty bottom with bottles and tins;

an anchor in all its servitude, its sins

flaking off in rust like a scurvy:

yet straining to hold a city in heaven -- cause topsy-turvy.