The sigh of waves that reach
but fall back down
again and again,
the washing back
that comes to seem devoid of hope,
the pointlessness of swells that never crest,
that never swoop and crash —
this is just a story, just a metaphor

The roll of water circles satisfied
underneath the surface,
the wave proceeds across the whole ocean.
The catch along the shallow bottom
that trips them, makes them fly forward
is just another phase of what they do

So rolls my life,
fuller, surely, than I’ve ever known,
the power of this moment
still more or less unharnessed,
not waiting for the vagaries
of bottom depth, of ship’s wake,
but drawing from a purpose of its own
to round out all the edges of what rises from within,
to fill the waiting hollows with its song.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2016