A Wave Breaks

Heavy seas
A wave breaks
Sending shards of broken water
Onto the decks
Scattering early morning light
And leaving a rainbow of mist
Where the wave used to be

In the trough
A valley forms between two emerald hills
The fleecy foam like sheep
Dotting the smooth hillside

At the peak
A mountain landscape opens up
Snowy summits as far as the eye can see
Treeless and stark as the top of the world

A slide to the bottom
A thrill ride, a wind-made ski slope
The roar and rush fill my ears
And overflow into the other senses:
I see the roar, smell the rush, taste the crash

To my right
The next wave builds
In its translucence,
I see a sudden shape, a silhouette—
A lithe, sleek body, curved back, tapered tail
A fin breaks the surface
A submarine skier
Slides down the slope, leaps into the next,
And circles back around to take
Another sweet run
Like a ram on the Matterhorn,
The dolphin is at home in these mountainous waves

A wave breaks—
An alien in this liquid landscape,
A mere visitor from terra firma,
I’m transfixed and mesmerized—
My fear dissipates like the spray