On the Flats
Every day the sea proves to be collapsible--
it goes away rolling and sighing heavily out of the long harbor
to the very horizon. Barefoot, we walk out across that level dampness
until we are very far from shore-- far from our house, or any house, stepping upon the moist plain
that is all that is left of the weight, the flurry, the flung salt, the flash and the dancing and the big voice of the sea.
What's real is the real question, addressed by us but never by the happy, go-lucky gulls.
Later, when the sea has returned as clean and blue as ever, and we are back home,
in our yards, on our porches, how curious to remember ourselves just looking around that emptiness,
and how we felt sad without feeling lost-- or, even, strange-- or, even, bereaved--
the way we stand, sometimes, in death-- or think we do-- in our purest, wildest thoughts.
On the Flats by Mary Oliver