I saw that the waves

Were always moving,

And always changing,

And never made

The same shape twice.

And it was beautiful,

But it was lonely,

And I thought of you.

 

I saw that the water was blue

But knew it reflected the sky;

The sky that is constant

But not, at the same time.

The sky held clouds

That burst with rain,

And the sea was marked

With bubbles in the waves.

 

I saw the land,

Away on the horizon;

So far that it was but a line of dark blue.

And the blue sky turned gray,

The clouds releasing the rain

On the people below.

But the sea was fine,

For the sky left it be,

And that is what I saw.

 

Then I turned from the sea and the sky,

And began to watch the people

The sky had rained on;

And I saw the men carving out mountains

While the women cut down forests

And the children played in dirty streams.

All those natural wonders

Were replaced by smoke and dust spirals;

I thirsted for my sea.

 

When finally I could look back at that blue expanse,

Away from the sights I had seen on the land,

I knew with certain horror

That one day soon

My sea would be invaded, too.

And this is my blessed borderland,

Between the sky and sea,

Where man may never touch me,

Nor gaze with eyes, nor breathe.

And that is what I saw.