What Lies Beneath

Here lies the fear.

What lies beneath the busyness
What lies beneath our exteriors
What lies beneath the ocean
What lies beneath the darkness

And what lies beyond.

Beyond where we can see
Beyond where we can reach
Beyond our wildest dreams
Beyond our control.

I spend a lot of time at the ocean and used to spend a lot of time in the ocean. I usually see it from the sand, and this sometimes causes me to lose perspective. The perspective of how huge, powerful, expansive, and tremendous this body of water is.

And it is a body of water. It moves, it breathes, it lives just like any other body.

I’ve been seeing my friend the Ocean from some different perspectives lately, and it’s reminded me of how small I am compared to it, how speechless I am at its feet, and of all the lessons I learned being rocked (or rolled) in its arms.

This re-opening my eyes to what I always see is something I need and try to do with everything and everyone in my life. Especially the things and people we are blessed to have in our lives daily. How do they look from afar? What beauty do you miss from being so close to them? What magnificence are we taking for granted?

One of my favorite poems on the ocean is this one from e.e. cummings. It speaks for itself.

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,

and milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:

and may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

-e.e. cummings