truly light is sweet
pleasant thing it is for eyes
to behold the sun
Based on the Bible Verse, “Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” Ecclesiastes 11:7 (KJV).
Regular readers know that I enjoy bragging that I work so close to the Atlantic Ocean that I am able to take a walk along the beach on my lunch hour.
It’s getting colder and the beach in winter isn’t as much fun as the beach in summer for many reasons but the draw is still there.
It is A BEACH.
The place where the land meets the ocean.
Still, I get asked, even by people I work with in this opportunely placed office, why?
Why do I walk the beach?
I can walk along and look out towards nothing and there are days where nothing is just what you want to, what you need to see.
In the book, The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk write of young officer Willie Keith that:
The sea was the one thing in Willie’s life that remained larger than Queeg.
The captain had swelled in his consciousness to an all-pervading presence, a giant of malice and evil; but when Willie filled his mind with the sight of the sea and the sky, he could, at least for a while, reduce Queeg to a sickly well-meaning man struggling with a job beyond his powers.
The hot little fevers of the Caine, the deadlines, the investigations, the queer ordinances, the dreaded tantrums, all these could dwindle and cool to comic pictures, contrasted with the sea — momentarily.
It was impossible for Willie to carry the vision back below decks.
One rake on his nerves, a wardroom buzzer, a penciled note, and he was sucked into the fever world again.
But the relief, while it lasted, was delicious and strengthening.
Willie lingered on the gloomy splashing forecastle for half an hour, gulping great breaths of the damp wind, and then went below.
All things dwindle and cool to comic pictures, contrasted with the sea — momentarily.
It is impossible, most of the time, but an iPhone photo can help, to carry the vision back.
But the relief, while it lasts is delicious and strengthening.
Boy HOWDY but I am privileged.
I get to walk along the beach at lunch time.
Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.
No Haiku For You 