The Life of Kuma

The wave was born a cat’s paw

Padding on the still ocean,

Substantial in its instant.

Through capillaries it grew,

Until gravity seized hold,

And it gained a leeward face,

And wind pushed its windward spine,

And the wave began to climb

As matter’s oscillation,

Energy on its way through

Dull, stationary water,

And the wave became a swell,

Traveling further, faster,

Losing so little power

As it raced now, across seas,

The great wave, superimposed

On time’s own wave of the tide,

So it retained its full strength,

Not a thing but an event,

Until it crossed half the world

To crash against the shoreline,

It didn’t care which shoreline,

City or sandbar or rocks,

To smash as a massive swash.

And then it was gone, κῦμᾰ,

Wave translated and transformed,

Power shattered and forgot.