Poetry Corner:

God’s Movie Night

by Chris Oelschlaeger | Member Contributor

Tall and proud, 
A young wave
Approaches the beach
Its eagerness on bold display
As it flaunts a perfect 1.618 curl

Connecting with the hard reality of the shoreline
The wave is born onto the land
In a sizzling collapse of spray and foam

Humbled, but not defeated,
It races up, up, 
And into the strange new world

As the wave explores,
The land shapes it,
Morphing our wanderer into a swollen peninsula
That mirrors its once-magnificent curl

The wave looks different now,
But it is still a wave
Sometimes, it has strange dreams
Of running on top of the ocean
A mighty cockscomb blast arcing from its top

But all too soon, the journey ends, 
And the wave recedes,
Merging back into the deep black,
Where its dreams turn out to be true

Occasionally, waves leave parting gifts
Pearls from the great beyond
But these gifts, like the wave that bore them,
Are fleeting, and easy to miss if you don’t pay attention

There is the wave, 
And there is the ocean — 
But not really

The wave is vain;
It knows it is unique
A precious, one-of-a-kind individual
That has never existed before
And never will again

Silly wave.
Don’t you know there is only the ocean?

To the wave, whose whole existence
Involves fluidity and motion,
The stolid line of rock and sand is
The most alien of destinations,
The subject of much curiosity,
And an excellent opportunity for adventure

To the ocean,
The beach is of long acquaintance,
A friendly rival and constant companion;
Since forever, they have been 
Frenemies on an epic scale

And yet, and yet…
Even the ocean must experience the land
One wave at a time

These intrepid voyeurs
Sent to oscillate
Between the eternal
And the manifest

Each foray to the high-tide line
A brief reconnaissance
A wondrous experience
Never to be repeated

Then, the circle closes with reunification
A natural transition;
A gentle slip
Wave to ocean, Me to We, Flesh to Spirit 

A return to the whole
Where the tale of wave and beach 
Will be conveyed
…and remembered

In this way, the ocean learns of its neighbor
One glimpse at a time;
Assembling its understanding
In a celestial, flickering,
Picture-show for the ages