Gulf

"Where my legs won't take me, memory will." - Ronald E. Moore

I remember seeing an ocean
for the first time. The size
surprised me more than
my heart's capacity
for understanding it.

The sounds, smells,
feelings were hyperbolic
like tides, pulling me
into and out of myself.

The associative property applies
as well, multiplying joy
and sadness like the ability
that unanswered prayers
have in giving us strength.

All those thorns within
bursting to get out,
they may never escape
the body with its blank eyes
and paper-thin skin,
but they call upon memory's
eye of light to surface
waves breaking upon the beach
and gulls calling us to flight
above waters that never end.