Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Ocean(s)

View of the Earth where all five oceans visible: World Ocean
Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”   ― Mahatma Gandhi

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”   ― Werner Herzog

“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.”   ― Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”  ― Rachel Carson

Clouds over the Atlantic Ocean

Midweek Motif ~ Ocean(s)

Mountain or ocean?  

When I live near one I long for the other.  

I don't think I could write poetry without them.

What about you?

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Your Challenge:  Choose an ocean you know or want to know~and in a new poem~use it to reflect on what is important to you.

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excerpt from Sea Sand

                      by Sara Teasdale

I. JUNE NIGHT O EARTH you are too dear to-night,
How can I sleep, while all around
Floats rainy fragrance and the far
Deep voice of the ocean that talks to the ground?
O Earth, you gave me all I have,
I love you, I love you, oh what have I
That I can give you in return—
Except my body after I die?
II. “I THOUGHT OF YOU” I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone,
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.
Around me were the echoing-dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea—
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me. . . . .  (Read the rest HERE.)

The ocean said to me once 
by Stephen Crane

The ocean said to me once,
"Look!
Yonder on the shore
Is a woman, weeping.
I have watched her.
Go you and tell her this --
Her lover I have laid
In cool green hall.
There is wealth of golden sand
And pillars, coral-red;
Two white fish stand guard at his bier.

"Tell her this
And more --
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands with corpses
Until he stands like a child
With a surplus of toys."

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

Related Poem Content Details

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The tide rises, the tide falls, 

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; 

Along the sea-sands damp and brown 

The traveller hastens toward the town, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

Darkness settles on roofs and walls, 

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls; 

The little waves, with their soft, white hands, 

Efface the footprints in the sands, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls 

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls; 

The day returns, but nevermore 

Returns the traveller to the shore, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

Howth Head, Dublin, Ireland by YvonneM

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and 

visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ 
Seeking the Extraordinary in the Ordinary.)

Classic Poetry - "In The Desert" by Stephen Crane

In the Desert

by Stephen Crane

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

A contemporary and friend of Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and Henry James, Stephen Crane is best known for his internationally acclaimed novel, The Red Badge of Courage. HIs poetry follows the same vein. Realistic, direct and unsentimental, it was quite different from the day's norm. A unique soul, Stephen Crane died when he was only 28.