The smell of salt spray from the ocean.

As you grow closer you sense its power, A kind of gravity that bends the air and light like a bow stretched taut across a newborn sky.

You know the sea in pictures,

A distant frozen horizon, the eager waves in ragged lines, Exhausted runners race and lunge To finally rest Prone upon the jagged shore.

But reality transcends Mere words and film; Assaulting every sense- Fickle sun uneasy glints Off a reckless surface; The sound of waves Pummel the sand As gulls wheel and cry above, Cautious in courting rare refuge, knowing their time in the sky Will end now and then.

The wind comes With ripples and swells, perhaps jealous of unrelenting tides; The same air surrounds and holds you; A mother caressing her child Lost upon the land Now found.

But for me  The rich smell of salt Most defines the sea, Primordial, wild and free, Braced upon the sand With bleached air all around We are forever changed,  Even in the stillness

Of far mountains And forgotten shores.

We are drawn you and I To remember the place we began And will one day surely return, The salt clings to us as we sleep And dream of sand and sea And home.