Friday, December 16, 2022

Lost at Sea - Dec 9 2022

 

Lost at Sea

Dec 9 2022


Not far from shore

the ocean is oddly quiet.


In open water,

where monster swells and bottomless waves

roll silently on;

the soundless rising and falling

presenting a deceptive calm.


No continental shelf.

No rocks, no breakers,

no land to dash against.

No receding surf

fizzing over sand.


The trackless ocean

is like a great brooding beast

that rules uncontested,

peacefully resting

in its immense imperial lair.

Its vast power contained

beneath the rippling surface,

too thickly muscled to hear

its purr of shallow breathing

its slowly beating heart.


And the man, lost at sea

clinging to whatever floats.

He is desperate to be seen

but mostly invisible,

bobbing up and down

from wind-whipped crest

to black-water trough.

The cold saps his strength

salt stings.

But most of all

it's the unnerving silence

that undermines his will.


An oblivious sea

shrugging him off

like a puny piece of flotsam.

This body

so inconsequential,

and its power

so utterly unquestioned,

it need not even declare

its overwhelming presence.


No comments: