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The sea is calm today.  The waves meet the deserted shoreline’s grainy, earthen sand with a subtle hush and spray as the water crawls urgently atop the bank as if trying to flee, break free, and seek refuge—a place of sanctuary—from the great and mysterious mass of the sea

But it is inevitable—just as the water collides with the jagged rocks of the coastline, sending a lurking, heavy, and cooling mist into the air from the sudden yet anticipated impact, the current is slowly pulled back toward the sea by the ever-receding undertow, leaving behind a shadow, a silhouette, a fingerprint of dampened and saturated sand turned some shades darker from the previous caress of the calming waters.

And how I long to feel the soft touch of dampened sand underfoot as I leave behind me footprints of decadence and victory, and feel the mild and cool breeze off the sea massaging and cleansing my aching soul, all while bathing myself in the waters of salty bliss.

As the sky fades to gentle hues of purple and indigo and pink, all discretely sharpened by the beautiful glow of the golden-clad sun, the shades of red come in to play their part of this twilight overture, striping, layering, weaving the sky with the indescribable passion of colors just before dusk.  The horizon slowly but nevertheless surely swallows the now auburn crescent of sun like the prolonged suffocation of a candle’s flame.  And not a moment later after the sun has slipped away beyond the horizon, safe from the gathering darkness, it seems to pull the full moon to the pinnacle of the night sky.

Steadfast in the darkness, the moon shines its light, encircled by a halo of luminance, casting lurking shadows across the terrain, and masking the water with an intricate cloak woven with yarns of a deeply shaded and shimmering blue, while as if on cue with the setting sun, crickets strike up their serene song of approval to the beauty of the eerie glow cast by the moon’s borrowed light.

Stars now make their presence know in this eventide symphony, at first with a subtle, dull shimmer, then forte into a pattern of stars so distant and dull, to those so close one would swear that they could reach out and take them from the night sky and hold them twinkling and beautiful in the palm of their hand.

Beyond the shore, where the earth becomes dark and fertile, there starts subtly various grasses and foliage and undergrowth which bloom flowers of every imaginable hue by day, but remain closed during the moon’s night reign as if surrendering their beauty held at day, folding from fear of the darkness that encompasses them, surrounds them, drowns them, and rejecting the light of the moon, for it is a false substitute for that which nourishes them during the daylight hours.  This continues for several yards, followed by an intense and sudden thicket of trees: oaks, firs, and spruce; alder, birch, and maple—all in concentrated patches from the spawn of seeds scattered ever-so-closely and carefully by the wind, that seem to struggle as they climb and reach toward the sky—some twisted and deformed, some brilliant and beautiful. The dense thicket goes on for miles upon miles until I can see, silhouetted against the backdrop, a range of mountains lost in the mist and clouds that have surrounded and hidden the peaks since what seems to be the dawn of time.  What is beyond that, I do not know.

As I listen to the ocean breeze brushing through the trees, it seems to utter a hushed whisper to me.  It is calling me.  Listening to this I watch the tide building hour by proceeding hour as the moon pulls the sea towards it with an invisible rope as hour by hour it climbs slowly but steadily atop the beach and washes away the silt and sand that has come to rest on the upper-most regions of the shore, a few yards before start the foliage and undergrowth, from millions of years of ocean rocks and coral disintegrating caused by the slow and steady pounding of the surf.  This silt and sand is stirred in a cyclone as it is picked up and swept out to sea with each wave’s regression from the shoreline, and drifts and falls like a feather caught in a draft to the bottom of the ocean where once again it will be washed up and back to the shore with the changing of tides.

Now gazing out to the vast, open sea I recognize the all-too-familiar emptiness in which it presents itself, for when looking to the sea the eye cannot wander beyond the line of horizon that marks the separation between water and sky.

Such a thing intrigues me deeply.  The mystery that hides itself beyond the horizon is one that I have always dreamed to pursue.

The harvest moon is lowering in the sky and soon the creatures of the night will retire to their various places of rest, and slumber through the approaching day, dreaming vividly of the night’s hunt, to be restored until come the next falling of the sun anew.

The night is beautiful—the deep darkness, the calm, the steady melody of the crickets—so I, like the nocturnal beast, spend most of my hours awake during the time when the sun is set below the horizon.  So that being as it may, I move away from my window, my serenity, to the world—my world—the only world I know, and lie on the cold stone floor as I have countless nights before.  Now I am soothed by the crickets’ melody and as my breathing slowly steadies to the gentle gusts of the ocean breeze, and as I am lulled into a deep slumber by the continuous ebbing of the waves gently lapping on the shoreline, a thought graces my mind in my final seconds of consciousness: Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be able to, just for one moment, leave my footprints in the sand and watch them gradually fade with each wave that touches the shoreline, and wash myself in the great and mysterious sea.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be, for just one single
moment . . . out there. . . .