BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS  

"Outdoor Sketches" by Grace Melvin

This poem was written by Grace Melvin, on June 8, 1939. It is from one of a folio of original issues of The Savary Pudding, a broadside created by Vancouver School of Art summer students on Savary Island.


Sound of the Sea

The sound of the sea swells through me
Gathering me into its sighing,
Making me one with all other sounds -
Echoes from far islands -
From people far away -
From salty depths unprobed -
And beauty never seen -
The wind -
The rain -
The Sun -
The heart of nature throbs and groans with it.

The sound of the sea fills me
Till I lose all knowing
Save the knowing that I am one with it
Now it draws me to a whisper -
We fade away and die in distant places -
Hissing back with new tunes and tellings
In our insistent surge -
Sucking in -
Roaring out -
Breathing and weaving together -

Voices that have been - are -
     and are to be -

Sighing
Moaning
Groaning - sound -
The sounds of the sea.


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