Chris O’Carroll

Tides
 
Where water, at their shared edge, strives with land,
Each claims a pulverizing victory.
Isle or continent subsides to sand
Drenched in spray scattered from the shattered sea.

As waves retreat, regroup, return for more,
And rocks surrender slowly, grain by grain,
The evanescent lyrics of the shore
Swing to a ceaseless cyclical refrain.

If there be sermons in this interplay
Of stones and flows that animates our beaches –
Abiding rhythm, fragments washed away –
There’s never one pat text when nature preaches.

Crews armed for conquest and for liberation
Have wagered history’s fortune on the tide.
Surfers pose in triumphal veneration,
Paying homage to the sea swells they bestride.

Children build mud-flat castles for an hour,
Then, when their turrets fall, raise gleeful cheers,
Thrilled by the surge of all-reclaiming power
That froths and glints like joy, yet tastes of tears.

Conducted by the moon, bright with the sun,
Cast as a weapon, sacrament, and toy,
Commanding in all roles, defined by none,
It tastes of tears, yet froths and glints like joy.

Chris O’Carroll is the author of three books, The Joke’s on Me, Abracadabratude, and Quantum Creed. He has been a Light magazine featured poet and a contributor to multiple volumes of the Potcake Chapbooks series. His work appears in New York City Haiku, Extreme Sonnets, Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle, and The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology, among other collections.