of a cottage I've never seen

I think often of a cottage I've never seen.
Made of stone, it overlooks an azure ocean
with paned windows painted in oil white
in time.

I can see the khaki stone wall facing the sea
as clearly as the day is honest
as clearly as if I myself have been there
to this cottage by the sea
this cottage that lives only in my mind.

The image of this cottage is based
purely on my imagination.
No photo reference. No drawing or painting.
A coloring of, perhaps from, desire, although on some days
I think need is the more appropriate word. A calling from
somewhere within, someplace I'd like to know a little better,
someplace that seems to know me.

I need not even close my eyes to hear the gulls,
to smell the sea just beyond the swaying sage oats,
a small path, single file only, weaving from the wooden steps of the deck
to a beach glistening with shells, the ocean's fruit. This sacred
walk I've taken a thousand times in my mind
as surely as beads prayed under glass stained. Each step
known, acknowledge, an embrace of sand and foot to the eye,
a compact between heart and mind to the soul. Where
the wind gently combs the moonlight from my hair
and the stars wink of a time no more
no more than my cottage I suppose
in my mind. Still, I pray the steps
as my grandmother prayed the rosary,
taking no bead for granted in the power
to make a difference, to climb those imaginary
stairs under arch divine.

The sun is warm but not hot, the light golden
never harsh and the air as clean as air on undiscovered
islands. The place breaths me, breaths me back
to start, to neutral, to that place without the toxins
of hand and mind, of account and ledger, of list and do;
a place not unlike the other ocean
with a gentle, motherly rocking
home of dreams
cradle of health.

I sit as an only child before this clear horizon
wordless as one who knows not a word
and try as I might, I find any and all words
just more windows between me and my soul,
my ocean, my dear cottage

that needs me, I think, as much as I need it.