I must go down to the sea…

Masefield’s second verse is not as familiar as his first, but it calls to me:

“I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

and the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.“

And so I must.  The predawn light is silken, muted…as is the sound of the sea. The tide out, the night’s land breeze a mere zephyr, the gulls at rest on the beach, the murres and cormorants at nest on the rocks, the pelican flight at ease on the swell. Dawn will come soon enough, but at this hour I have the sea’s edge to myself.

Well…  With respect to my fellow bipeds I have the shore to myself; the low tide has exposed the fecund and tenacious biota of the intertidal zone to one of the subaerial portions of their day.  The moment is as regular as…the tides…yet each time it is a new experience, a new mystery, a new discovery…

And that is what Rachel was talking about…

“The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place. All through the long history of Earth it has been an area of unrest where waves have broken heavily against the land, where the tides have pressed forward over the continents, receded, and then returned. For no two successive days is the shore line precisely the same…“

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.“

One’s thoughts first turn to Silent Spring. It was, of course, the clarion call to action in the face of massive utilization of “biocides” (most notably Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane – DDT).  But, being Rachel Carson, it was much more than that.  The great arc of her book is the interconnectedness and interrelationship of all living things (including Homo sapiens) and the world in which we live; the danger of following the easy path, i.e., treating nature as being here in service to H. sapiens as opposed to a less traveled road:  the recognition that we are but a part of a much larger, mysterious, and wondrous whole.

Waiting for  the building light, it is then her earlier work that comes to mind…  What is called the “Sea Trilogy” – Under the Sea Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1950) and The Edge of the Sea (1955) Is not as well known.  But it should be…

The Edge of the Sea.  Carson’s book is part travelog, part field guide, and a prose-as-poetry tribute to the place where the sea meets the land.   She had taken a trip down the Atlantic seaboard from her beloved rocky New England coast to the wide coastal plain of the mid-Atlantic states to the corals of the carbonate platform that is Florida.

A North Pacific rim dweller, I’ve not had the pleasure of coral atolls as she discovered in Caribbean waters, but the active tectonic setting of the Pacific rim has allowed me a different set of mysteries to explore…

The converging plate boundaries have created and now maintain the mighty Cascade Mountains that extend from northern California to southern British Columbia.  But it is the particular clockwise rotational motion of this part of the world (the interaction of three tectonic plates…another story…) that produces the undulatory up-and-down edge-scape as one moves north-south along the coast. In turn one finds the magnificent headlands (with their associated sea stacks and sea arches) and the great estuarine embayments (with their associated beaches, bars and spits).  The former produces rocky coastlines, pounding surf, and crashing waves.  The latter broad bays, flat water, and sandy beaches.  Marine life reflects the differences. One has to cling tightly to the rocks in the pounding surf (the various marine stars, for example).  Burrowing in the sand is a good strategy for some in the estuary… Microclimates and micro eco-zonations abound; localized current and wave conditions require constant attention for those on or near the water.  Wonders surround… 

The sun breaks through the uplands of the Coast Range, delivering weak but well-defined rays to a few of the taller sea stacks. The great rocks, quiet in the dark, come alive as they welcome the morn.  The murres and cormorants, stirring with the light, create a motion, a vibrancy, a liveliness  on the crest; you can see it, hear it, feel it…   

“Those who dwell…among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.“

I must go down to the sea…