Usually We Think Nothing Of It

Usually We Think Nothing Of It

Here’s a sweet sad poem by tenth grader Elise Wing, this year’s high school winner of the Ocean Poetry Contest, sponsored to the California Coastal Commission.
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Thoughts We Have Getting out of the Car in Monterey

Night in the Philippines has fallen

and usually we think nothing of it
as we go about
checking our watches and tempers
our laundromat costs and taxes

and our kettles and language



But today is different

today we clamber out of the backseat
and the wind shocks us
the sun is too harsh on the sea

and the sea too wide to look across it



So instead we imagine across it
thinking of the boy
with lips wide and elliptical like banana leaves
as he melts into his hammock



Listening to dogs bark
and cars rattle over the potholes

the rain falling like slashes of black ink

and the neighbors

laughing over the last bowl of squid curry

Elise Wing
Grade 10
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Our image today is titled “The Heart of Ocean” by 3rd grader Karina He from San Francisco, winner of the Ocean Art Contest in her grade category.

We often read and write poetry as part of our Blue Theology youth mission trips and adult pilgrimages.  It opens our hearts to the “Heart of the Ocean.”

Like Elise Wing, when we see the wide ocean, we often think nothing of it, just checking our watches and tempers.

But today might be different.

The ocean is indeed very wide.  What do you imagine across it?
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 (We in California should be grateful for the California Coastal Commission for enforcing our fantastic Coastal Act, coordinating the annual Coastal Cleanup Day, and sponsoring this annual Art and Poetry Contest.  Check out their website for all the winners.)