The Crashing of the Waves

I was young when I first heard the crashing of the waves replace the crashing of the plates; The smashing of the whites against the rocks, I fancied, echoed china devastated on the tiles, And the lights reflected on the broken glass, the glitters of the sun on waves as night awaits. In darkest nights, all through my youth, I dreamt of ocean tides ferrying me to farthest isles.

In my young adulthood, I began to dream differently of the ocean blues and golden sands afar. Visions of the rainbow caustics on my skin beneath the surface camouflaged the scars and aches, And the radiance of ocean sunsets on the sandy shores illuminated and revitalized my dying star, But only for a while as day would break again, giving up my fingers and my soul to violent quakes.

In time, and not without demanding trials, the quakes subsided and I forced my feet to take my weight. I began to dream of coral reefs and singing whales, brilliant tide pools and the kiss of warm sea sprays. The aspirations were evocative and moved my feet onward, on to the distant future. Reality awaits. So, I planned, and then I saved, and then I spent. The day would surely come, I’d say, one day.

I was not yet old but youth has let me go; I was not so bold but seldom did I look behind me— Still, I dreamt ahead of me would be divine marine sojourn, but dreams, I realized, were dear. The bills came fast and ate into the piggy, and the fixing-ups would always leave messy debris, And in the midst, I one day saw the shipwreck of my life, the flotsam of my history, all the pain and fear.

The profound shadows of the ocean trenches hid the nightmares deep within my blissful dreams of old, And while I waded tranquil in the shallows under golden rays for years, the depths below bestirred. The crashing waves and smashing whites, the glitter of the sun and rainbow caustics; now the cold. The open waters turned to blood, the glittering ripples into broken glass. All was surreal and absurd.

Now I rouse from sleep within the shadows of this concrete jungle, shaking remnants of my nightmares off. Thalassophobia would be the end of me, I say, and sigh relief at the solid ground underneath my feet.

A morning capsule—quiets the quaking in my soul, and breakfast oval—dulls the sharp vibrations of the world; and into the world I’m off

To grind and race, to slave and pay, and run away from nightmares of the past, and dream of ocean blues and listen for the crashing of the waves.