The Sea in You
I do not know who I have become unless I move closer to you
The Sea in You
When I wake under the moon, I do not know who I have become unless I move closer to you, obeying the give and take of the earth as it breathes the slender length of your body, so that in breathing with the tide that breathes in you, and moving with you as you come and go, and following you, half in light and half in dark, I feel the first firm edge of my floating palm touch and then trace the pale light of your shoulder to the faint, moonlit shadow of your smooth cheek and drawing my finger through the pearl water of your skin, I sense the breath on your lips touch and then warm the finest, furthest, most unknown edge of my sense of self, so that I come to you under the moon as if I had swum under the deepest arch of the ocean, to find you living where no one could possibly live, and to feel you breathing, where no one could possibly breathe, and I touch your skin as I would touch a pale whispering spirit of the tides that my arms try to hold with the wrong kind of strength and my lips try to speak with the wrong kind of love and I follow you through the ocean night listening for your breath in my helpless calling to love you as I should, and I lie next to you in your sleep as I would next to the sea, overwhelmed by the rest that arrives in me and by the weight that is taken from me and what, by morning, is left on the shore of my waking joy. -from David Whyte: Essentials
Join David for his next Three Sundays Series, The Cost of Love: The Deeper Alchemical Exchanges of Intimacy - March 15th, 22nd and 29th. All live stream sessions are recorded and available to registered attendees until July 1st, 2026.
“I do not know who I am until I move closer to you”. Oh, this is one of my favorite poems of yours. I discovered the collection ‘The Sea in You’ in July 2021 — around my wife’s birthday and almost two years after she passed. I read these poems over and over that summer discovering how they bridged that what was between us when she was alive with the imaginal realm of mystery and presence in her absence. In my dreams, in my memories, in a full moon lying together on a cold winter’s night among the shadows and liminal snow pack of our forest. Thank you.
David—I’ve restacked The Sea in You as a ‘Tide Challenge’ for everyday health: morning walks as rising tides, meals as cool waves on skin, night resets on the shore of joy. Intent: reach beyond poetry lovers to help more people build better lives through it.