The sea is ever-changing.
This is the second of three visions I had in meditation. To read more about how this came to be, you can read the introduction to part 1. While I don't really see this as poetry, it just flowed in this format.
I sit in my room
The room is framed with magic The window set about With shells, with starfish Through it I see the sea Sitting beside it, I hear the sea But the sea is distant A thousand miles or more
"Come out to play!"
Manannán is calling me "Come out to play!" I know He is the trickster
"No trick," he says
"There is a door. Go into the next room and see." And there is a door I open it to solid water Which does not spill Through the open doorway
I enter the water and swim
I know what it is to be a selkie The water perfectly cool I swim I know the speed of a dolphin And Manannán rides on my back
Not the stately Storm King
Of beard and robes He is something other Suggestion of beard Green hide Webbed feet He is something ancient Entirely other
And I see
He rides the dolphins And the great fishes He loves this! And the smaller fish His "little lambs"
And I understand
That this This is why He is God of the Sea Because in this life This underwater life Where He knows The pleasure of speed The pleasure of travel He will protect His fast steeds His little lambs |
artist: Helen Rich
|
"Is part of you
For your land
Was once under the sea
Now you mourn
Salt without water
The bleached bones"
When He rises from the water
He becomes that robed
And bearded Father
On His sacred island
He is thus
How His waters will rise
And the earth will be whole
And the land will recede
And the people of the land
Will turn on one another
And thus reduce their numbers
And the earth will be whole
But never the same
For the sea is ever-changing
There is not one thing we have made which did not come from the earth - the concrete and glass, the rusting metal. We ripped it all from her breast, and when we push too far, a great change will come. Our plastic and trash and destruction will somehow be re-shaped as nothing more than strange deposits of minerals and organic material, and what is left of our race, if anything - will we be as the Fomorians or as the Tuatha Dé Danann? Or maybe Manannán's children this time?