The Great Mystery

A poem by Carol Bialock

I built my house by the sea
not on the sands, mind you,
not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.
A strong house
by a strong sea.
And we got well acquainted,
the sea and I.
Good neighbours.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences,
respectful, keeping our distance
but looking our thoughts
across the fence of sand.
Always the fence of sand our barrier,
always the sand between.
And then one day
(and I still don't know how it happened)
the sea came.
Without warning.
Without welcome even.
Not sudden and swift,
but a shifting across the sand
like wine.
Less like the flow of water
than the flow of blood.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight,
and I thought of drowning,
and I thought of death.
But while I thought
the sea crept higher
till it reached my door.
And I knew that there was neither flight
nor death
nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling
you stop being good neighbours.
Well acquainted,
friendly from a distance
neighbours.
And you give your house
for a coral castle
And you learn to breathe underwater.


A thought

"Now the curious thing is that ... I understood the sea in this poem as an image of the presence of God - the way he takes over our lives. When I showed it to a monk friend, however, he saw the slow advance of the sea as the gradual encroachment of the agony of the world upon one's consciousness. It is only now, ten years on, that I begin to understand what he meant when he said that the great mystery is that the two are really the same."

Source "Sharing the darkness" by Sheila Cassidy, DLT 1988, page 9