Monday, September 5, 2016

if places were people no. 4

















   






your eyes are blue. 
as blue as the rest of you, 
ranting and raging and throwing your wave arms up in the air with every 
gust of teasing wind. 
you told me once
green was your favorite color.
i doubt it.

it's not just one blue. 
but layers. 
almost black-blue, like sleeping heavens 
and then the cerulean lighter Caribbean pools,
streaked with the almost white of ripped denim and 
the deceptive brownish of sea foam. 

your waves are uneven, 
and they ripple across the surface of the sand like your skin
ripples across you 
the dips and curves making tide pools 
for crabs and sea anemones to take refuge. 
most people don't like you 
"too chilly. can't swim there. 
and there's too much wind and rain."
i like you. that's my kind 
of weather - messy and dirty and sad and yet simple
with only sand and water to get in the way of itself - the way you let the mist 
lounge about, 
sauntering from tree to tree, street to street,
storefront to storefront,
enveloping, muffling the distant song of water's heartbeat,
and it makes my jacket and jeans damp with its heaviness.  

when i walk down to your shore you throw wind at me
thinking i'll walk back  to the house for warmer shoes and some hot chocolate. 
but that's the thing

you don't know me. 
i'm a mountain girl. 
mountain girls climb mountains just to find wind that carries new scent.

i face that wind, 
and i let the water make my feet go numb,
it's iciness is threatening but
i'm not afraid of you. 

beach length waves shove against each other, 
racing to reach my ankles
a bet against time
a wager for the pretty lady. 
i think of what the jovial nature hides - 
harshness and honesty. 

chasms. 
doldrums. 
hurricanes. 
shelter to the water beasts
raging against the coasts. 

the way you never stop - 
you're a constant of wave, water, depth, shallows, 
somehow you cover every aspect and the sheer 
immensity makes me feel small. 

i think of
the way man has wanted to tame you
and yet you have remained just as dangerous as before 
they tied some sticks together and tried
to cross you. 
"we'll win the pretty lady,
pretty lady come home in our tub"

but you pulled them down in maelstrom and reef 
sent an extra breath of wind to make the waves psychotic
carved graves out of the feasting table
that sharks so often watch.

and yet how like man you are, 
those long waves equalling strong shoulders, 
bringing the wind and blocking it at the same time, 
gritty hands pulling at my feet, digging sand around,
kissing locks of my hair, mingling my blonde strands with your sandy ones,
light and bleached from salt and sun
and then kissing my lips with
your salty ones. scratching
my check with the bit of stubble, grit at the top of 
your cheekbone, sharp.
i can't tell if it's a scar that's yet to heal from 
the tiff with that shark last week
or if it's because you never shave when 
you're supposed to. 
you leave gifts on the shoreline:
seaweed, driftwood, pretty stones and shells 
and even the occasional sea star or jelly fish. 
some days you bring me sea foam in your hands, but 
it spills over, all over the bland sand and makes me laugh 
when it flies in your face. 

the perpetual lullaby, 
murmuring sweet things in a language i do not understand,
shhshh shhshh,

others say be careful. 
that you're dangerous. 
that i shouldn't swim too deep. 
you'll pull me away from them. 

i think of our differences. 
me climbing heights and you diving depths. 
both breathing oxygen but yours is in water and mine is in air
and i imagine your sandy hands pulling at my feet again, 
deeper, love, deeper, let me show you something beautiful. 
and how you love to tease the seagulls. 

i think of how you send me sunsets and 
i think of the way i found the mountain looking at the stream instead of at me
and i think of how i'm tired of air, 
and i'm tired of the brown and green of mountains and the mocking 
humhumhum
of the wind in the ponderosas 

you send a salty kiss my way 
and pull me deeper beneath your waves and i can see the 
sand dollar cities and 
a wall of sea stars and 
families of fish 
and a shark says hello

and how the water feels different in my lungs and 
how it feels different in my hair,
and I see the danger 
and I see your anger
but I also see the way you smile 
at me and i think i like your little gifts and the shades
of blue in your eyes. 
i think i like your lullaby 
and your allure
and the way you send me winds filled with new smells 
i like the way your hands are not big enough to hold the sea foam and how
you're wild, but you're mine. 

12 comments:

  1. Sami, this is so beautiful. <3 I can't stop reading it. I love it.

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  2. the description in this just GLOWS. wow. i want to go to the ocean so badly now, but these words almost made me feel like i was there. and the pictures are STUNNING. i love the diversity of them and yet how they are all connected.

    andsowewillbethehopeful.blogspot.com

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    1. Andrea! Thank you! :) I wrote this about two months ago and then left it because I didn't have the pictures yet, but then when I came back to it I did the same thing! I really want to go to the ocean again!! :)

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  3. OH MY GOODNESS! FIRST OFF I LOVE THESE PHOTOs. The fish photo makes me happy, I dont know why!!
    Ah so many good lines in that piece of writing.

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    1. Vanessa! AAAH THANK YOU :) I love the fish photo too :)

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  4. whooooooooooooooooooooo. woman. this is *sputters*. i'm trying to find words with enough impact to PUNCH YOU IN THE GUT LIKE YOU JUST DID TO ME WITH THESE WORDS. but also soothed me like a gentle wave yet to break. and like the wind whipping my hair and making me giddy for no reason. and like the longing that always tugs at my heart like the tide at the sand whenever I look across the unending expanse of the ocean. it's everything I've ever wanted to put into words man. this is a stellar exhibit of the breadth of your vocabulary too O.O LITERALLY UNBELIEVABLE. you're too good. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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    1. OLIVIAAAA OMG THANK YOU :) :) :) ah. Ok. So I pushed myself on this one. I had kind of just been letting things slide as far as poetry goes, and all my stuff was starting to sound the same - so with this one I was like "HA. NO. It's the ocean here. It has to be better than ok." And I really stretched my vocabulary and tried to think of the ocean in a new light with new descriptions :) THANK YOU FOR YOUR SWEET WORDS :) <3 (also your poetry on your blog pretty much do to me what this one did to you soooo......TWINSIES YAAAASSS LOL)

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  5. ohhhhhhh MAN. Sami. your style... is there even words? you have this free style style but it's...old soul. rare. it's like redwood trees. unique, like an echo from something forgotten generations ago. I can't adequately put it into words, danggit, but there is something very very special about the way you write. you have a very very special gift. don't you ever forget that.

    dang ♥

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    1. KATE THANK YOUUUU omg you are so amazing :) I love that you love this. <3

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  6. This is legit one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I WISH I KNEW HOW TO SMASH MY KEYBOARD ENOUGH TO DESCRIBE HOW MUCH THIS BROKKKKKE MY HEARRRRT IN ALL THE BEST WAYS IF THAT'S POSSIBLE?? NO. IT'S NOT POSSIBLE. BUT THEN YOUR WRITING CAN'T BE POSSIBLE EITHER. BECAUSE IT IS THAT BEAUTIFUL. <33333333

    No joke every time I see you post one of these "if places were people" poems I drop EVERYTHING and read it (not without SCREAMING of course) because these are just too good yum omg waht can I eat it too late I ate it <3

    :''''')
    >><<
    abbiee

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    1. OOOOMMMGGGGG I LOVE YOU and I love that you love this and I just love the ocean....slightly obsessed. Who am I kidding MAJORLY OBSESSED. Abbiee- you are sugar. Seriously. And your words are beautiful. <3

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