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