ON GULL ROCK              

A heedless deity,

        all-powerful and oblivious,

the ocean grants sea-glass jewels to barefoot children,

        but is not generous.

It drowns sailors and steals their ships,

        but is not malicious.

It soothes broken hearts with blue-green vistas,

         but does not sympathize.

Crouching on this bluff, here in middle age,

          I hold a photograph:

Myself as a child, with my mother,

          standing on this same rock.

She is gone now, and I miss her.

So staring into the gathering fog,

         I address the ocean’s fathomless power

                and ask the old questions.

The surf booms, its language still inscrutable.

Yet, one day, the tides will pull us all from the shore.

        Raging or acquiescing, we will sink beneath the waves

             moving deeper, then deeper still–

                   immersed within the mystery,

                           enveloped in its magnitude.

Perhaps then,

        we will be acknowledged.

Perhaps then,

        we will hear the ocean’s voice.

David Reece