Backs to the Sea

/ johnlmalone

People who live here, he said, live with their backs to the sea.

And I said, how could anyone turn their backs to the sea?

And I thought of mum, before she was hauled away, saying,

I want to go back to the sea again,

how she sounded like Miranda the mermaid who had strayed

from her home

but when she got her wish, when we got her into a retirement home

on the esplanade, she grew jaded.

What’s wrong, mum? we asked.

I want to go home, she said. I want to go back where I lived with dad.

But you’ve got a ringside seat, mum, to the Southern Ocean. A view to die for.

It’s not the same, she said, not when you see the same thing day after day.

But we sat with her, watching the red sun sit on the lip of the horizon like a wafer,

the seabirds flying home, and a kind of calm settled on her.

38 thoughts on “Backs to the Sea”

  4. I do not know how I feel about this poem, but I must say being speechless about this may have been because this poem has its own powerful nature. Love it! 😇

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  5. Yes, I think poignant is right. It’s a conflicted poem, reflected in your Mum’s competing nostalgias. Does the poem answer the question “how can anyone turn their backs to the sea?”. Or does it reinforce it? I don’t know. But the end is lovely. A unified breathing…

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  8. This is so sad. Have to be in the mother’s place to feel her sorrow. It’s not easy to leave your home and familiarity. The despair of old age.
    Well written, John. 🙂

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  12. I have always loved the sea and I will always love the sea where we spread my dear, dear mother’s ashes. It’s sight nearly always calms my soul. Thanks for the poem about your dear mom and that sacred place.

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