The vivid green paws
Of the sea
Played with the rock cliffs, batted
Them like torn twigs,
Buffeted in the barking
Winds of the gale,
Swatting the pale,
Cardboard king,
On the hill, unseating him,
Pretender to his mournful, desolate throne
Of death,
Built of a splintered tree
On desecrated lands,
Sending him tumbling down
In his tinseled crown,
Only to take up his beguiling tune again
On his fife
And his drum.
Soon
The wail
Of the waves
Overwhelms all
The spires of existence
When
They slip
Heedless,
In dim
Strands through darkness
Into the abyss.
Almost gone the waffling
Tip-toed, tall,
Top-hatted
Arrogance
Of the feeble minions
In white wigs
That used to trip
Along after the weak and wobbling
Pied piper who, it was said, chains and enslaves
All life,
Yet who one day saw
Even his fife
And his drum
Fall
Down
Into the green dance.
Now he too is gone into the wild, primeval,
Laughing hiss
Of the waves of the sea,
No more to be.
Gone by the power of the paws
Of the sea,
The clamping jaws,
The widening maw of the watery, untamed beast
Of the sea,
Of the earth,
Who rides forth
On the mist of the east,
From unmapped horizons.
Now she is running
Ever so swiftly
On her bright green paws
To take back the night of innocence,
Of steep stillness
And stars unknown,
Born of ancient, bright-winged stone.
©Sharon St Joan, 2019
Photo credit: Photo of public domain work of art / The Great Wave off Kanagawa / Katsushika Hokusai / Wikipedia