Putting a Doer to Rest

I. 

The wave is forceful, it is directional. The wave curves up and jumps in a sometimes perfectly rounded, sometimes chaotic ‘U’. It ever stretches its arms toward the pull-aim-strike of the shore.

II.

The dam was built, and it barricades and it narrows and it towers over. The waves rose more wild, more torrenteous, determined to squeeze into the cracks of the dam and explode it to its fall. Each stream of the edge of the wave was like a long screaming tear with the smell of disinfected, decaying flesh. The dam tamed the waves until they became like a groveling, wet, dirty, homeless dog with no dignity and no shelter.

III.

Let me smooth my hand over your tired eyes. Close them not in your death but in your rest.

The sea gently rocked back and forth in its place, not in irritation, not temperamentally. Let what should flow in and out of the dam flow in and out of the dam. The waves are stilled for now.