For the last little while, I have taken my breakfast by the sea, more often than not. I go around 6:30…thermos of coffee and simple meal–sometimes an oatcake wrapped in a cloth napkin; other times, a jar of ‘cold oats,’–one of my summertime favourites. I read, I write, I pray… I don’t need to stay long–most days I’m back well within an hour. Today while writing I used the expression ‘bone and feeling’ and it resonated. I also wrote about the feeling of being in a space that welcomes, that assumes you into its being…that breathes all around you and with which my own breathing becomes as one. Bits of what I wrote became part of what follows here. Just thought I’d offer some context.

Bone and Feeling

To receive horizon’s welcome,
to note the mood of the sea;
to be still within 
a space that receives me as part of it
by drawing me down to my elements,
to the bone and feeling of my being;

to know with the truth of all senses
that tides, the crows, herons, geese, gulls,
loons, cormorants, and every sort of tree
and all that has become stone,
breathe an embrace around me.
To let go into this

is why I breakfast here,
in the clean, calming weight of briny quiet.

Kimberly M. King