Song of The Sea, Song of the Shore

The sea and the shore - they're often personified as lovers aren't they, constant companions, ever in flux, but always steady, fixed. I like this pairing of poems, giving voice to each. 

Song of the Sea to the Shore - Robert Fanning

Unraveling velvet, wave after wave, driven   

by wind, unwinding by storm, by gravity thrown—   

however, heaving to reach you, to find you, I've striven   

undulant, erosive, blown—   

or lying flat as glass for your falling clear   

down: I can't swallow you. So why   

have I felt I've reached you—as two reflected stars,   

surfaced, lie near—as if the sky's   

close element is one in me, where starfish   

cleave to stones—if you're so far?   

I've touched you, I know, but my rush         

subsides; our meetings only leave desire's   

fleeting trace. Every place I touch you   

changes shape. Shore, lie down—   

undo. I'll fill your thirsty bones with blue.   

I'll flood your every cave and we'll be one.

  
Song of the Shore to the Sea - Robert Fanning
 

It's never enough being one. Why do I hope

to contain you: always undoing and undone;

every place you touch me changes shape.

It's not my way to just lie down;

to sink, effaced and full. If you

swallow me, you're drained, and half

of us is gone. Desire's fulfillment is two,

not one, or our tidal meetings are through.

So hurl your wet force forward, sea,

take me wave by wave. Pearl maker, pull

me deep; our one's a need, a momentary

bliss. What I erect, you spill—

castles, boulders, cliffs. My love's endurance

grain by grain; your adoration's rain.

Touch my bones, my canyon's carved evidence.

Even the moon who moves you is stone.