Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.
~ Rachel Carson
Marine air moving to shore from the mighty Pacific Ocean at Moclips Beach, Washington, USA.
Sea’s edge
Category: Ocean
When anxious, uneasy…
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
When anxious, uneasy, and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Coming home
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
We return to the sea, from whence we came
It is our primordial home
Reflection
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
These landscapes of water and reflection are an obsession.
– Claude Monet
Ghost Ship
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
One way or another, all the bridges between that time and this one have been burned. Time’s a reach, too, you know, just like the one that lies between the islands and the mainland, but the only ferry that can cross it is memory, and that’s like a ghost-ship – if you want it to disappear, after awhile it will.
― Stephen King
Lines in Sand
Words and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Wind from the west
sketches lines in sand on the beach;
to be erased with the next high tide.
As will our moments, days, lives;
only memories and shadows remain.
Harvest Moon ~ Bashō
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Harvest moon:
around the pond I wander
and the night is gone
~ Matsuo Bashō
Sea clouds
Words and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Darkness comes early
The sun struggles to break through
Obscured by sea clouds
Wind and sand
Words and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Wind and sand create waves
erasing the footprints we leave
and the castles we build with our lives.
Only memories remain
until they, too…vanish.
Footprints
Words and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
When we go to the western edge,
my dog Jack and me
We walk the tide line for miles
of only sky, sand and sea
Our footprints will soon be erased
As in time will we
Alone together
Photo and poem by S.W. Cosgrove
alone
together
watching our footprints
vanishing
into the eternal sea
with each receding wave
Sometimes when I think of life
Sometimes when I think of life, I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up on shore.
~ Haruki Murakami
If dogs run free, why not me ~ In harmony with the cosmic sea
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
If Dogs Run Free ~ Written by Bob Dylan
If dogs run free, then why not we
Across the swooping plain?
My ears hear a symphony
Of two mules, trains and rain
The best is always yet to come
That’s what they explain to me
Just do your thing, you’ll be king
If dogs run free
If dogs run free, why not me
Across the swamp of time?
My mind weaves a symphony
And tapestry of rhyme
Oh, winds which rush my tale to thee
So it may flow and be
To each his own, it’s all unknown
If dogs run free
If dogs run free, then what must be
Must be, and that is all
True love can make a blade of grass
Stand up straight and tall
In harmony with the cosmic sea
True love needs no company
It can cure the soul, it can make it whole
If dogs run free
Dragons in the water, in the sand
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
“I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Farthest Shore”
Jervis Inlet
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Aboard the Slatery Bay-Earls Cove Ferry
Sunshine Coast
British Columbia
Canada
Walking on the Western Edge: Moclips River Morning
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?
That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Ocean nights
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Ocean dark, ocean light What colors will the ocean give us tonight?
Fading of the light
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Dusk is a mirage
Twilight’s but a shadow
But tides are forever
Landscapes of water and reflection
Photos by S.W. Cosgrove
Art is not a reflection of reality, it is the reality of a reflection. ~ Jean-Luc Godard
These landscapes of water and reflection are an obsession. ~ Claude Monet
Walking on the Western Edge – Riverine Reflection
Photo by SW Cosgrove
Moclips River walk, Washington coast.
3 March 2021
Pure reflection – single, unmanipulated image.
Jack
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
My best buddy Jack, whose motto is: no stick too big!
Ocean storm
Photo and text by S.W. Cosgrove
There’s a hush in the gloaming
as black clouds move in from the west
You don’t need a weatherman to see this storm coming
One last walk on the beach
But don’t tarry
– S.W. Cosgrove
Still water reflects
Photo and text by S.W. Cosgrove
still water reflects
light dancing on the surface
but look just below
Evening’s ebb tide at Iron Springs
Text and photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Evening’s ebb tide at Iron Springs
pulls the Pacific Ocean waters back into its infinite bosom,
etching paths in the dun sands
as I watch from above
Bridge over the Tacoma Narrows
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Know when to cross it
Know when to burn it
Know when it’s real
Know when it only exists in your mind
Eventide at Kalaloch’s shore
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
The sun, once brilliant and dominating the sky, now recedes into the horizon, bringing a new day to the Orient.
The unpacific Pacific Ocean, churning furiously during the day, now rests, its heart beat in rhythm with the pull of the moon.
Chaucer wrote: Time and tide wait for no man.
And they shall not wait for us.
Walking on the Western Edge – Kalaloch driftwood
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
At beaches at and around Kalaloch are massive piles of driftwood washed ashore over decades and centuries. These “drift logs” include ancient trees that are several feet in diameter and tens of feet long that can weigh several tons.
Over time, the branches, bark, and heartwood—what appears to be nothing more than floating debris—become either home to or sustenance for a range of plants and animals that change the properties of the wood dramatically. This is an example.
Walking on the Western Edge of North America – Kalaloch, Ruby Beach
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
Traveling north on Washington’s Pacific coast, vast sand beaches and endless horizons of rolling surf are replaced by towering stone stacks in a restless, crashing surf that carries battered driftwood the size of entire trees to the beach.
Inland lies the lush, primordial rainforest.
I love Kalaloch in winter when there are fewer people and the storms roll in, blackening the sky, sending mountains of water into the air before crashing to the beach. I rent a rustic cabin on the beach, going to sleep and waking up with the insistent pulse of the mighty ocean right outside my door.
In future posts, I will share more of this world. Here is Ruby Beach.
Flow river, flow
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
The river flows
It flows to the sea
Wherever that river goes
That’s where I want to be
- Roger McGuinn
Moclips River meets the Pacific Ocean, Washington, USA
Painful endings, new beginnings
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ― Lao Tzu
May this new year bring us peace, health, and wisdom.
Ebb tide
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
As the winter tide ebbs at dusk,
so shall it rise in a new day,
the eternal dance between earth and sea.
No hands on deck
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
On mornings like this,
I could ride the ferry all day.
The upper deck is all mine,
freshly washed by Puget Sound rain.
Dragons aloft on the wind
Photo by S.W. Cosgrove
And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet I would remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore