Letter to a Friend

Simeon Dumdum Jr

“Soon we were lulled to sleep
by the sea’s wildly sibilant
undulations…”
Susan Lara

I must write you about this view.
The wind, like a puppy, plays with the paper.
How much wind there is in our lives here,
as much, I’m sure, as there is sea where you are
(and you had better mind the Portuguese man-of-war).
How I wish I was by the sea again.
This slack season the men must be painting
the hulls of the boats or sleeping
the noon away.

I would not sleep if I were they.
At noon we hear and are consoled by those parts of us
that are forever outside: hammering, cockcrow,
children playing, and, of course, like a loved one
whose presence underlies all sound, the sea,
which I hear now as the wind hits the ears
and dissolves with a funneling hiss.
There is no sea, but I hear it in the wind,
just as I hear a friend in a letter.