It is half winter, half spring, <br />and Barbara and I are standing <br />confronting the ocean. <br />Its mouth is open very wide, <br />and it has dug up its green, <br />throwing it, throwing it at the shore. <br />You say it is angry. <br />I say it is like a kicked Madonna. <br />Its womb collapses, drunk with its fever. <br />We breathe in its fury. <br /> <br />I, the inlander, <br />am here with you for just a small space. <br />I am almost afraid, <br />so long gone from the sea. <br />I have seen her smooth as a cheek. <br />I have seen her easy, <br />doing her business, <br />lapping in. <br />I have seen her rolling her hoops of blue. <br />I have seen her tear the land off. <br />I have seen her drown me twice, <br />and yet not take me. <br />You tell me that as the green drains backward <br />it covers Britain, <br />but have you never stood on that shore <br />and seen it cover you? <br /> <br />We have come to worship, <br />the tongues of the surf are prayers, <br />and we vow, <br />the unspeakable vow. <br />Both silently. <br />Both differently. <br />I wish to enter her like a dream, <br />leaving my roots here on the beach <br />like a pan of knives. <br />And my past to unravel, with its knots and snarls, <br />and walk into ocean, <br />letting it explode over me <br />and outward, where I would drink the moon <br />and my clothes would slip away, <br />and I would sink into the great mother arms <br />I never had, <br />except here where the abyss <br />throws itself on the sand <br />blow by blow, <br />over and over, <br />and we stand on the shore <br />loving its pulse <br />as it swallows the stars, <br />and has since it all began <br />and will continue into oblivion, <br />past our knowing <br />and the wild toppling green that enters us today, <br />for a small time <br />in half winter, half spring.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-excelsis-3/
