Sea

By night, she is herself. Free to be what she was born to be. Their mutual yearning for each other hidden by day, her infinite depths now whisper to her lunar love. But, even by night, it is never truly consummated - despite their slow and silvery dance. Their distance draws them together yet keeps them apart.

You turn to her seeking... what?

Wind drops, birds nestle in, the sun's distracting glare has long since moved on to wake distant cousins. It's her turn.

You smell her. The salt of the ages, yet a fresh and freshening sense of surprise, of birth. A hint of her secret garden, pleasantly pungent seaweed set adrift, escaped from its bed and wandering a dance with its partners of tide and fate.

You hear her. Listen long enough and her language grows clearer. Untranslatable, yet she needs no translation. From white noise emerges her voice, a surging whoosh a crack a thwump as she rears breaks tumbles, spilling in a shock of sudden release. Then; a sucking slurp as she returns, coaxing with her the fine sand, the crushed shell, the rejected rock.

You see her. She is black, smooth, ebony silk, a thick, used oil; tar. You could walk on her as though down a road, following the moonlit trail to her outer horizon, then up up up the beam to the moon herself. Yet this is myth - she's no longer black, she's now white. She's writhing, prostrating herself at your feet.

You touch her. She's warm. She's cold. She's wet. She's gone. You step nearer, she slides away. You step nearer, she rushes back. A collision course. But she hasn't seen you, she runs on up the beach. She leaves you again, as though you had never met. You plunge in. Under. Through. You are of her. You cherish her weightless embrace, her power over you - she sweeps you off your feet. Away from her edges you are lifted, but know she shan't let you go.

You taste her. She is on your lips, a tang a tingle of salt's hunger. It's water but it burns, slowly, imperceptibly.

It is night, her night.