For my good friend, Mike, who plans to move back to Florida in the Spring.

​At night, when I close my eyes,

I can feel the salty air fill my nostrils.

As the Ocean beckons me to return.

 

Come back, it calls.

This is where you belong.

 

To once again slip into the deep blue sea

As the world above me disappears

Giving way to the splendor of the World below the waves.

 

Ah, the freedom!

 

The Silence!

 

The stunning beauty!

 

As the bubbles float silently above me

I can survey the brilliance of sea-life

As it presents itself beneath me.

 

Oftentimes beside me.

 

The majesty of creatures hidden by coral reefs

That sometimes peer out at me as I float quietly by

And return their silent greeting in my grateful mind.

 

I have promised the Ocean that I will return one day

Even though it means leaving behind another

Different World I have created in its absence.

 

A temporary, although not unhappy World,

Where I bide my time until I can sink deeply

Into the depths of her breath-taking beauty once again.