SO

SO

moonlight scattering
its silver
across what
was earlier a
turquiose sea

night
has now turned
dark and forboding

sharks out there
maybe more hunting here
than when
the Sun was rising
or at its zenith

you are not thinking shark
but strumming the chords
of a tune on
a battered guitar
you have had since childhood

somehow
    it strikes up a harmony,
musical counterpoint,
with
   the roar of the waves
as they release their energy
crashing
     onto the white beach
as boiling surf

surf and your song
         so sad of
a sudden

our planet
      really fragile and
we
  have made
it so

a rogue rock
     might do it

vast as a cathedral
as it hurtles through space

pre-empting some
           quietly insane member
of our
species
    depressing some button
launch codes
checking out

and yet
the roar of the waves
hits us with such power
that we
    cannot but conclude
it will last
until
   the end of time
forever and ever

even though (as indeed
the sharks
       might tell us)
it is dying by degrees