Too Big

Too Big

 

It’s just too big. It’s too big to write about in one fell swoop.

You can’t tell of its color or its size or its sounds in one sitting and

you can’t, in one session, describe its moods, whether melancholy

or violent, or how the light is reflected or the way the wind plays with the waves,

or its tides and its currents or its odors, both fragrant and foul.

 

The division of land from sea is a concept that requires patience

to develop and time to carefully draft and paint, frame and mount.

The granite overlooks and beaches alone can fill volumes and still

fall short of a full image of just our small piece of the shoreline.

And our status, as harvesters, walkers, boaters, swimmers and

observers could overflow photo books and decorate many walls.

 

All this and yet no mention of the fish and the lobsters and crabs

and the clams and the oysters and whales and other sea mammals

and insects and vegetation; the jelly-fish and squid and the

plankton and starfish, the sea-slugs and snails; the worms and

those eerie heat loving species that are only now

being discovered in thermal vents at it deepest parts.

 

This whole other world is both a part of and apart from us.

We feel it and hear it and see it and smell it and taste it

and are mesmerized and enraptured by it, but it’s too big

to capture and too big to paint and too big to describe in

words on one sunny July afternoon.

 

So let us understand what we can, view what we will and

allow its mystery and majesty help teach us how we see

ourselves on this earth and in the universe.

“But, if a man would be alone,” Emerson said, “let him look at the stars.”

To this we should add, let him also look at the sea.

 

Marty Luster