The Ocean

    
The Ocean

Ocean at Night -- by Tim Johnson

  















                      
In the silence, I could hear
Softest sighings, drawing near,
Sighs that turned to sobs and then
Returned to sighing once again.

“Who is it that sobs and sighs?”
I asked, and heard then soft replies
That came like gentle waves ashore,
With lappings louder than before.

“I’m the one who grieves at night,
Who shuns the day, with all its light.
I’m the one that you can hear,
The sadness that the thoughtless fear.”

“What’s the reason that you sigh?
Tell me now the reason why.”
This I asked, and waited, yet
The answer, soft, I could not catch.

“Oh speak again, and loud and clear!
Your answer, I could barely hear.
Your words, like water poured on sand,
Are gone.  I could not understand.”

But all I heard again were cries
That turned to sobs and then to sighs.
The waves that lapped upon the shore
Were softer than the ones before.

I listened, as the silence grew.
And in the quiet then I knew
I’d heard the sound of faded grief,
From which there never is relief.
 
And if you listen, you might hear,
Sighing softly, drawing near,
The one who shuns the light of day
And takes your grief, with her, away.

And since so many others grieve,
And more and more, so I believe,
From hoary past, the ocean grows –
And sighing, softly laps our shores.
   
That ocean, yes, of sadness, is –
As is its ocean, twin, of bliss.
And like the waves, of dark and sun,
Those oceans two are truly one.

Waves on the ocean, with the sun breaking through clouds -- by qulady

 

















                    
2014 March 10, Mon. 3:30 pm
teachers' cafeteria, basement
New Utrecht High School
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
(last stanza added March 16 Sun.)