I need to be near the water!

Thoughts today are drifting west from my little island to a friend on the Eastern Seaboard.

I've been thinking about times spent by various oceans and seas. Beach days, children days, stormy wave-tossed days, days for sitting and thinking.

So - I'm offering this little poem by Billy Collins

Walking across the Atlantic

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach

before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic

thinking about Spain,

checking for whales, waterspouts.

I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.

Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what

this must look like to the fish below,

the bottoms of my feet, appearing, disappearing.