My Ocean- Heritage Week 2026 “Its always ourselves we find in the sea”.
Video transcript
The poem that I’d like to read, and it’s not mine, it’s by a guy called E.E. Cummings, and it was written in the ’60s as far as I know, and it’s called Maggie and Millie and Molly and May, okay?
Maggie and Millie and Molly and May went down to the beach to play one day.
And Maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and each sentence of this poem ends with an “and,” which makes it quite unusual.
Millie befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were,
and Molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles, and
May came home with a smooth round stone, as small as the world and as large as a loan.
For whatever we lose, like a you or a me,
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.
That’s it.
Hilda O'Grady
