“In the beginning was the sea—we heard the surf in our breathing, certain that we carried seawater in our veins.”

— ilya kaminsky, from dancing in odessa

— olga broumas, beginning with o; “love lines”

“Sedienta como el mar y como el mar ahogada / de agua salobre y honda / vengo desde el abismo hasta mis labios / que son como una torpe tentativa de playa, / como arena rendida  llorando por la fuga de las olas.”   

“Thirsty as the sea and like the sea drowned / with salt water and deep / I come from the abyss to my own lips, / which are a clumsy attempt at a beach, / like exhausted sand / weeping for the waves’ retreat.”

— rosario castellanos, “mur de lamentaciones” (tr. magda bogin)

“between your touch / and my cry / between the sea / and the dream of the sea”

— anne michaels, all we saw; “sea of lanterns”

— anne carson, from the beauty of the husband

“There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.”  

— khalil gibran, from sand and foam

“Toni Morrison writes, All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Back to the body of earth, of flesh, back to the mouth, the throat, back to the womb, back to the heart, to its blood, back to our grief, back back back.”

— natalie diaz, postcolonial love poem; “the first water is the body”

“Ella es toda de aire y de aqua fina. Un recuerdo de sal, de horizontes perdidos, la traspasa en cada ola, y una espuma de barco naufragado le ciñe la cintura, le estremece la yema de las alas ...”

“She is all air, all gentle waters. A memory of salt, of lost horizons, and the soaking of every wave. The foam left by a shipwreck clings to her waist and the tips of wings sends a shiver up her spine.”

— dulce maría loynaz, absolute solitude; “ci” (tr. james o’connor)

— hélène cixous, the laugh of the medusa

— audre lorde, from the black unicorn: poems

“…the ancient, reconciling smell of the sea that, in time, will cleanse everything, scour the old bones white, wash away all the stains.”

— angela carter, from “the bloody chamber”

“…and the soft nose of the clammy sea airs, rubbing, snuffling, iterating, and reiterating their questions — ‘Will you fade? Will you perish?’ —”

— virginia woolf, from to the lighthouse

“All loose things seem to drift down to the sea, and so did I.”

— louis l’amour, education of a wandering man

— la collectionneuse (1967)

“Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst. Yet I cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.”

— kahlil gibran, from the prophet

“Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss.”

— t.s. eliot, from selected poems