Repost of Mediterranean plus a poem

Yesterday I spent the day on the Lake, thinking of the history of Lake Erie and how once it was the largest fish producer in the world.  Then I remembered the Mediterranean Sea with its history of the Greeks, Romans, and Iberians.  And that leads me to this repost from my happy moments on my favorite sea.  At the end of the post after the classic song, Mediterranean,  I included the poem with the same title from my first chapbook.

Mediterranean

     After 4 years of swimming in lakes, I've returned to the beaches of the Mediterranean.  I feel the slippery salt on my skin and its taste on my lips.  I'm not bounced about in the waves or flung under, scraping my knees on the bottom like in the Atlantic.  And let's not even talk about the Pacific with its fierce waves and chilly waters.  For the most part, the Mediterranean is gentle.
    When I step out of the water here I feel light.  When I get out of a lake something soggy stays with me, like from the mud bottom of a pond.  The salt of the sea is a great purifier, a healer in its way.  So I have one more day to enjoy if not the water, then the pastel colors of the sunsets.

   The classic song by Joan Manuel Serrat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNkcAUAv1kw

I have a poem from my first chapbook too.

 

 

Mediterranean

 

I live in a country

where you can choose to die

trampled by a bull, madly foaming

in an age old ritual,

where  slowly yet certainly

parrots nest in the palms

replacing street worn pigeons

already tagged and counted.

No prohibition

the body is gently forgiven

I too lay naked outside.

 

Red flowers burst

against white walls

narrow rocks step

to the sea,

blue as ice,

warm as milk.