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Circe - The Consuming Vastness of the Sea



The Consuming Vastness of the Sea

Thy sea, O God, so great,
My boat so small.

So begins a poem by Winfred Ernest Garrison. I’d never heard of him. I’ve been sending my blogs to friends and family and two days ago I received a response from my sister-in-law, Maureen. Her email included this poem in its entirety. She said every time she reads my narratives, she is reminded of this poem and decided to share it with me.

These opening lines struck me as a poetic description of how we feel on Garrison’s “consuming vastness of the sea”. Your sense of minuteness is difficult to describe, though many have tried, and even more difficult to comprehend in the absence of the experience. How inconsequential you feel upon an infinite carpet of blue and under the blanket of heaven, yet how indispensable you are to your crew. A nice juxtaposition.

Really all I can say is we don’t focus on the isolation, the vastness. I contemplate it surely, particularly when sitting quietly and scanning the horizon accompanied by the sound of the sea as Circe’s hull cleaves the waves. Instead, we focus on the issue at hand, whatever that may be - a change of sail, the raising of the whisker pole, a repair of the compass mounting. Perhaps it’s these mundane, necessary actions that elevate our sense of purpose in the face of the minuteness?

What’s important to me about receiving this poem is that I have succeeded in giving someone, in this case Maureen, a glimpse into what this sea passage has been like. In sharing my story, she was reminded of Garrison’s ode to the sea and was inspired to share it with me. A fair exchange, I’d say. Thank you, Maureen.


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