poems
Poems
MANA OF THE SEA
D. H. Lawrence
Do you see the sea, breaking itself to bits against
the islands
yet remaining unbroken, the level great sea?
Have I caught from it
the tide in my arms
that runs down to the shallows of my wrists,
and breaks
abroad in my hands, like the waves among the rocks
of substance?
Do the rollers of the sea
roll down my thighs
and over the submerged islets of my knees
with power, sea-power
sea-power
to break against the ground
in the flat, recurrent breakers of my two feet?
And is my body ocean, ocean
whose power runs to the shores along my arms
and breaks in the foamy hands, whose power rolls out
to the white-trending waves of two salt feet?
I am the sea, I am the sea!
This poem has been growing on me since I first read it several weeks ago. It somehow captures a very powerful sense of merged identity with the ocean. Of course, as a marine geologist, the idea that he refers to waves breaking among "the rocks of substance" ignites a resonant chord in my - despite the mixed metaphor....JRD
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