Making No Waves

I was brought up by still water. Waves, to me,

were those gentle ripples made by the wind

briefly skimming the surface of the river.

I saw the ocean from far on top of a cliff,

swooping and swirling below, thrusting white fingers

up the glassy sides of sheer black rocks.

I knew that, down there, those distant eddies

were huge; their force could hurl a grown man

to crash and shatter against that wall of stone.

I learned dog-paddle at school, won't drown

in a backyard swimming pool, and probably not

in a dam or a creek, or even a lake. But the sea ...

I never enter the surf. I'm too old and too large

for swimming in the safe shallows. Instead I paddle

at the sand's edge, where the spent waves can't catch me.

I think I drowned in Atlantis. Now I won't submerge

even in still water, above the neck. While my face stays out,

I'm calm. I can sit on a boat and laugh at the spray.

And I like to live by the ocean, hearing at night

the rumble as it pours across the world, to break

on our shore and soften, rhythmically, over and over.

Next time I come, I think I'll be a man. I'll live in Sydney —

or Hawaii — and throw myself into the sea while I'm a child,
to play without fear, and finally conquer the waves.

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif: Waves