Mama taught me sea rules:

Dive under monstrous waves

No flailing over or through them.

Gauge waves as they form, lifting the ocean like

Whales coming to surface

Except the entire horizon swells,

Rising.

      Rising.

                       RISING.

Commit and paddle with all you've got,

Shoot down the face,

Exult in salt-water stinging your eyes.

Embrace wind and billow, rushing, crushing,

Hear Neptune's raputurous roar.

And sometimes the noise was me

Yawping into the fabulous fury,

And sometimes--oh sweet memory--

Mama and I swooped together.

Landlocked here now how i miss surf sounds,

Sough and sigh, backbeat to Mama's

Favorite lullaby.