O ocean grave

O ocean grave,

Thou arms dost encircle me, cradling my head in thy cold, heavy bosom. Gentlest of companions, thou art a being of compassion, grace and beauty unmatched in this gauche, ugly world.

I was but a child when nurtured by thy silken sands that sweeped beneath me and spreaded between toes bare. My feet would press softly into the foreshore and yonder, bestowing loving footprints like kisses at the foot of a letter. Any impression I hath upon thy greatness was fleeting with hungry waves erasing my trail, but thy grip on my tender heart was fierce, thus thy seductive tendrils engraven a taunting mark.

Thy warm shallow waters hast licked my skin as the ebb and flow of tide enticed me into thy embrace where I would float upon thou, feeling thy waves caress my cheeks, lifting them into a smile. Men would argue thy taste be bitter and salted but the crystalled water was sweet to my lips.

A puppet to my fascination, thou drawest me forth with thy mysterious intrigue, to thy endless breadth and deepest of blue that dost hypnotise the most fortunate of mankind. For we art blessed, I perpend, to be welcomed into thy domain and discover thy secrets.

Though a literary man, I noticed myself lured toward thou with an attraction unrivaled, a thirst for adventure like that which might march a gladiator into battle, quenched only by thy beckoning answered. A ship, no less, would carry me to meet thou, O ocean grave.

Upon this mighty vessel, I was lifted to hear thy whispers on the wind like the hushed murmurs of a mistress, to see thy fillest our sails with thy passionate breath, to feel thy brushest through my hair with thy breeze, to smell the perfumed current that can only be thine, and to taste thy seasoned spray on my tongue. Thou art intoxicating. The fewest drops of poison in thy large chalice would only marr thy mesmerism, weaken the stupor thou dost put me in, and quell the falter in my desperate heart.

Creatures of fin and scale roameth thy depths, thriving in thy cup which overfloweth and art whisked far beyond our human restraints to reach, safe in thy arms. My soul was left wanting, estranged from intimacy, separated from thou by some cruelty that I was unable to join the specimens of thy care.

As a young man, I travelled the New World to be united with my egal brethren; common admirers of thine, beasts which hath strucken me with awe while others with fear. Their commanding grey fins circled our boat, bodies impossibly motionless as they glided beneath thy surface. When the sharks descended into thy loving protection I felt myself coaxed to the ship’s edge, leaning precariously over toward thou and thy children then mere shadows in thy embrace.

O ocean grave, how I wished I could join them and be ferried by them into thy waiting arms. I was enamored by the long, lean entities that could arrive with such a compelling presence and just as quickly become phantoms, never to grace my sight again!

The children of thy womb art protected by thy shimmering skin that few men dare to breach but for I, thy most faithful, who by happenstance hath fallen into the glittering sun reflected like nature’s diamond sparkling within arm’s reach.

In youth I hath been witness to thy soft refracting light dancing across the sandy floor, swaying with forests of kelp and pirouetting between the sharp coloured corals. Now, the beams of light shift across my sinking face like fingers trying to grasp my last breath.

From my first breath to my last, I hath been besotted by thou, I know not wherefore. O ocean grave, how thy winds doth throw me into thy tempest, thy furious swell and wet rapture. How thy immensity and chilling surround beneath thy surface dost bewitchest me, how thy complete attention, teasing silence and immortality bestowest a fulfilling and endless love.

My life is thine.

To thou, I dedicate this epistle in a glass bottle to be carried by thy dancing waves yonder.

Eternally in thy embrace,

Mr. Tristan Gembrook