The Sea Hold
The sea is large.
The sea hold on a leg of land in the Chesapeake hugs an early sunset
and a last morning star over the oyster beds and the late clam boats
of lonely men.
Five white houses on a half-mile strip of land
five white dice
rolled from a tube.
Not so long ago
the sea was large
And today the sea has lost nothing
it keeps all.
I am a loon about the sea.
I make so many sea songs, I cry so many sea cries, I forget so many
sea songs and sea cries.
I am a loon about the sea.
So are five men I had a fish fry with once in a tar-paper shack
trembling in a sand storm.
The sea knows more about them than they know themselves.
They know only how the sea hugs and will not let go.
The sea is large.
The sea must know more than any of us.
Carl Sandburg
