“By the sea! By the sea!

By the beautiful sea!

You and me! You and me!

Oh! How happy we’ll be!”

…goes a silly Broadway ditty

sung on the beach of a beautiful ocean.

But I have grown older, now.

Have come to know the ocean

to be a growling, roiled, rolling world

sucking out the sailors soul

and grinding down the sandy shore

with scouring winds and pounding, wild waves.

As does life,

with the common, ordinary horrors of the day

we all know of so well,

so,

if we could,

we’d shrink back from it

as we would

a shark fin, slicing the surface of the sea.

(Though once he’s chosen his meal,

there is really no place to hide.)

And so,

we seek a placid pond,

or the soft, shallow stream

where ripples lick-kiss the shore-line

in naive mock up of cyclones…

And there we wait with artificial faith,

thanking the hoped for gods

for the artifice of heaven.