The Monk by the Sea

Wandering among the winter dunes

flattening into an expanse of sand

and sea and sky embracing one

another, a solitary figure, a monk

perhaps an artist or a writer

or both, for they are the same, stands

facing outward, away.

Wandering among the winter runes

of his mind, a monk, or perhaps

a writer or an artist (they are the same),

reaches to escape the reality

of the everyday to touch that ocean, dark

and deep, forbidding, that ocean calling

to him in the everyday.

Painting: The Monk by the Sea by Caspar David Friedrich (oil on canvas; 1808-1810); Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.