I used to fear the unknowable, unimaginable depths of the ocean. Whale watching with my dad and my brother, I looked eagerly over the ship’s railing for the splashes and spouts that revealed a whale at the surface, but I didn’t dare imagine the rest of their bodies any deeper down than the bottom of the boat. If I pictured their rubbery forms, propelling through the sea and at one with it at the same time, almost invisible against the dark blue water, I could imagine the mass of the ocean swallowing me down and my vision would blur at the edges. I held very tightly on to my camera.
At some point, I came to appreciate the ocean for its vastness. It became an acceptable fact, something trustworthy, instead of a knowledge to be conquered only by absolute comprehension. All I need to know is: “How big is the ocean?” “Big.” And, “What would I do if I got sucked out to sea and I had to survive through the night and a whale came and—” “That’s probably, almost definitely never going to happen.”
The ocean just is. And there’s not much more to know. Its size, its tides, its smells, its creatures. It’s power is astounding, and yet, it is mostly predictable, reliable, knowable.
Alan Dugan was born in Brooklyn and eventually migrated to the outer Cape among the other artists and writers who colonized here in Truro. He founded and taught at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
Note: The Sea Grinds Things Up
It’s going on now
as these words appear
to you or are heard by you.
A wave slaps down, flat,
Water runs up the beach,
then wheels and slides back down, leaving a ridge
of sea-foam, weed, and shells.
One thinks: I must
break out of this
horrible cycle, but
the ocean doesn’t; it
continues through the thought.
A wave breaks, some
of its water runs up
the beach and down
again, leaving a ridge
of scum and skeletal debris.
One thinks: I must break out of this
cycle of life and death,
but the ocean doesn’t; it
goes past the thought.
A wave breaks on the sand,
water planes up the beach
and wheels back down,
hissing and leaving a ridge
of anything it can leave.
One thinks: I must
run out the life
part of this cycle
then the death part
of this cycle
after the last world,
but this is not the last
word unless you think
of this cycle as some
perpetual inventory
of the sea. Remember:
this is just one sea
on one beach on one
planet in one
solar system in one
galaxy. After that
the scale increases,
so this is not the last word,
and nothing else is talking back.
It’s a lonely situation.
—Alan Dugan, 1983
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