baywalk 0311

i care little for the sea.

i dislike her lonely endlessness, that brutal honesty with which she shakes her head, refusing to do us favors.

i have no great love for the salt that weights the air around her with a sudden hunger, or how she leaves facts out to dry on rocky shores, keeping instead her icy opinions locked away, unfathomable.

i envy how effortlessly she remains deep, constant, in that grey knowledge that immortality is a fearsome thing, in that patience with which she teaches fish to fly.

the sea is as true to her nature as i am capricious, and this tame acceptance is why we can never be friends.

perhaps it is fate that i should have nothing to do with the sea. mine is, after all, a month of storms, when people would rather not think of water. my sign is air and hers is neither the same as mine, nor is it earth or fire. thus, we have nothing to say to each other, not even to argue about.

this does not bother me; it is not man's place to hold the sea as an equal. our ships are as empty a lordship as any other crown. it simply does not do to attempt conversation with a thing older than creation, silent as a passing star.

see, then, how i give the sea grudging respect. though i would sooner drown than have lunch with her and discuss the weather, i cannot speak ill of her, for she has mastered that art which i, by definition, cannot practice:

tolerance. 
posted by stani at 10:27 PM