Читать книгу No One Can Stem the Tide - Jane Tyson Clement - Страница 8

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MANASQUAN INLET I (1939)

Here to these rocks, not grown from the sand

of this shore, not spawn of this sea-edge,

the men have come, drawn by the storm wind,

the leap of spray, drawn by the sleek, deep

no-colored seethe of the water at evening,

drawn by the sure power of morning

down to this outpost, this strange ledge of life,

this channel of finite to infinite; here the men

gather; always their heads are turned seaward.

Between the great jetties of rocks the tides come

and roil and devour and are manacled.

Here the men sit, and watch the known water,

the known and familiar waters of inland;

river and cove where the heron has waded,

marsh where the kingfisher screamed his blue anger,

shallows and reedy lagoon where the huntsmen

have waited; these are the waters they know

and have lived from, these are the waters

that feed the great hunger of ocean;

now the need of the tide will carry them outward,

lost in the dark indefinable surge of the sea.

Watching the run of the tide, the dark river

of knowledge, outward to mystery, out

to be mingled and claimed, the men find a fragment

of patience, a portion of fearlessness,

watching the waters go fearlessly outward to death.