Our Valley

Our Valley

by Philip Levine

We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,
something massive, irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.

You probably think I'm nuts saying the mountains
have no word for ocean, but if you live here
you begin to believe they know everything.
They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,
a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls
slowly between the pines and the wind dies
to less than a whisper and you can barely catch
your breath because you're thrilled and terrified.

You have to remember this isn't your land.
It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside
and thought was yours. Remember the small boats
that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men
who carved a living from it only to find themselves
carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home,
so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,
wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

Summer continues to be a common theme these days...and no wonder! Many a poem are about the seasons, and especially in New England where the summer is so fleeting, we document it so often. But I'll take it!

Here the author expresses the power of the ocean's call - its voice, the breeze, the smell, the omnipotence of it all. A lot of people don't realize how magnificent the ocean really is - I am lucky enough to have lived in Massachusetts most of my life (except for college and studying abroad in Spain-yay!), so I guess sometimes I take the vastness and grandiose nature of the ocean for granted.

It also brings up the notion of the pilgrims and their first journey to the East Coast across the large Atlantic Ocean. They didn't realize the power of it, or the real trauma it can cause (e.g. Remember the small boat, that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men, who carved a living from it only to find themselves, carved down to nothing.) The ocean can encompass much more than just water and the creatures that inhabit within it - rather, it represents something larger than ourselves, a power of nature that we can't target or name or even overcome. The ocean will always be the ocean, and it will always have a hold over humans that we will never be able to match or grasp or really understand, no matter how far we develop technology or try to control Mother Earth as we like.