Ocean



(1) Although we go to the ocean together,
mostly I go there to talk to the sea.

The reason I take a companion
is to help me understand
what the sea has to say:

In the early 1970s
when he was 18
my friend Fritz
the son of a decorated Nazi
who committed no war crimes
hitch-hiked across america
from the east coast
to the west coast
in search of what there was
to be in search of:
looking for a question worth spending his life on.

When he got to San Francisco
he found the following question:
What could be possible for human beings to be?

You see the question was not "Why?" ?
"Why?" just delays us from confronting the emptiness:
It just keeps us distracted from answering the much harder question:
the question of being and nothingness:
the question of "Who?".

(2) Although we go to the ocean together,
mostly I go there to talk to the sea.

The sea is SO OLD
and so UNIMAGINABLY VAST and UNIMAGINABLY EMPTY
and it brings all of the moon and
wind's strength to bare on
these volcanic shores
and all around the world
all of the time.

The ocean knows nothing and everything
and is indifferent as to whether
you're going to die in the morning:
and if you ARE going to die in the morning,
having someone with you who is indifferent
is exactly what you need.

People who "care" just make everything harder:
all those last goodbyes
they want from you.

On a warm summer evening
just after sunset
I would choose
the ocean any time.
Listen to it tell me nothing
and everything that there is
to know about that
(which is also nothing).

(3) Although we go to the ocean together,
mostly I go there to talk to the sea.




Poetry by Andrew Bindon
Read 617 times
Written on 2010-01-15 at 14:48

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