Ocean

Night's implacable blackness softens gray concedes to day's advancing light.

As dull morning mist dissipates ever so

Slowly, its sea-shroud recedes

Revealing the ocean still toiling like Sisyphus

To shove the bouldered shore up 

against the sloping strand. 

Ocean waves wait and pace and cast

furtive glances landward

-- a stealthy lioness assessing her kill,

haunches taught and muscles twitching,

the scent of prey thick in her mouth -- 

until some secret signalled summons 

suddenly assembles the waves to form 

an urgent phalanx, no longer separate waves 

but one watery wall of fury that surges

to pound the sand and smash against rock wall

concussing in a great thundering rush 

against the shattering shore 

sending great sprays raking skyward

then falling as gentle rain down upon the laughing sand

who knows that each raging effort Ocean wages

against the rock, the sand it strives to subdue grows

grain by grain.