The Sea

I The sea-foam is a spinning face, An ebbing drumming talk, Curling to meet the silent edge, Rustling tenderly over rock.

II In between swell and retreat, I feel its memory, a giant force, Riptiding the air with whispers, A voice submerged, and still.

III The salt wind becomes an audience, The one silvered cloud hoists pale grins, The same tide that murmurs me homeward Pushes me out towards the rim.

IV Past the lighthouse, a wrack and wreck, Fishermen lose their thread of faith. Caught at the breaking point of biology, The sea is learning to fall beyond—

V I linger at the edge of its dark, My pulse glows swiftly in the slipstream, Sunk deep, where it’s thundering high, Here I drift, caught in a rhythm of air and sea, To touch the real beyond all time and shape.

• Ted Hughes