If you float that river down to the sea,
you will know long days of peaceful drifting,
but also rocks and rage, oh so bone-soaked.
You will be thrown from the craft, clinging --
trying to get back on to right your raft.
You will find yourself in an endless sea --
connected to all others.
Trapped on the island by typhoon. It's evening dark, though at high noon. The waves are wild and still rising. So, ferries won't be running soon. The few streets there are lie silent, but - seaside - the winds whip violent. We hide inside a bungalow, and hope it's fixed firmer than my tent. One 's always where it's most remote when they cancel all ferryboats: where there're too many thoughts to think, and few distractive antidotes.
Upon the ocean shore,
there is a rock:
hard,
black,
porous,
volcanic.
Gentle seas send ripples
against its base.
Stormy seas send waves
to relentlessly batter it,
crashing over its top.
Both the lapping waves
and the crashing waves
cart away parts of the rock --
one unit of grit at a time.
The lapping waves need patience;
the crashing waves need energy,
but they both insist a tax be paid
for their labors.
Just looking at the rock,
one can tell it was once different:
bigger,
its pores filled
with other rock -- softer rock,
rock that the sea long ago turned
into sandy bottoms and beaches.
The rock is dissolving like an ice cube,
except in geologic time.
bulging undulation of water, the rolling topsides of wave bumps catch a blazing white shimmer every square meter is in unending flux, shifting & rolling, growing & shrinking the wake of a ferry causes wave to roll into wave at odd angles, sending the ripples into a cross-hatched madness of bobbing water i watch for hours and the same sea never repeats
boulders in a pond become the stone monolith islands in a sea.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 