I Want An Ocean Kind Of Love

Standing with feet in sun-warmed sand, my eyes follow an old couple walking hand-in-hand at the waterline as crumbling waves wash over the tops of their bare feet. They smile. I wonder what their secret is. Will we ever walk hand-in-hand, you and I, barefoot by the sea?

I want an ocean kind of love … that burns like Sufi poetry.

Paused at the water’s edge, I stand witness to the ocean rolling constant as the calendar. On some days it might darken and storm like the eyes of angry lovers. But today, the skin of its water warms from the sun like the faces of the children building sandcastles at high noon just past the ocean’s reach.

I’ve been reading Rumi again. The Sufi poets know the hunger of a man’s passion. They can express the dry-throated thirst of a man who wants to sip on kisses. When I read Rumi … I think of you.

I understand the moon. It is easy to understand. Like the children in sagging swimsuits running into the water up to their knees – splashing each other, laughing with squeals of delight. I pause again. With feet sinking into wet sand, where the water meets the land, I imagine our children, running gleefully back to us from the splashing surf, and with sandy hands they tell us of all the fun they had in the waves. I want an ocean kind of love.

In the rainbow spray blown from the lip of a breaking wave, I can see the wind. As I face the horizon, eyes cast across the sea, I feel the breeze kiss against my cheek. I think of you, and in the movement of the air around me, I listen for your heartbeat and make secret fevered wishes that you hear mine like a kiss blown to you by the breeze between us. I want an ocean kind of love.

Further down the beach, where the sandy bottom organizes the incoming swells into shapely waves that stand-up straight before they roll over themselves, I watch the surfers time the sets. They rise and fall in the troughs of the waves that pass underneath them. And I imagine how we might time life’s steady roll, its rhythmic ups and downs. I want an ocean kind of love.

I have a hunger to know you, a thirst to kiss you, my lips burn with dry impatience.

In my hour by the sea, thoughts of you keep me company.

I want ours to be an ocean kind of love.