Bit of a flex, but I hate the beach,
Sand gets underfoot and underneath,
It steals shoes, children, land itself.
I prefer the continent to the shelf.

It’s a bitter death, but I like the ocean,
The waves, the chaos, the commotion,
It all averages out to something calm,
Dancing between the fingers of a giant palm.

I used to play between the waves as a kid,
Now I’m too self-conscious for that, I stay hid,
But I still feel and fear, just as I did.
That feeling of being alive,
So close to dying.

The ocean makes the sand,
As God mocks every plan.
Just as life makes death,
The order is really irrelevant.

It’s like the thief told to repeat Mara (death),
Until it turned into Rama and liberated him,
Things are constantly flowing in and out of each,
Like waves unto the beach.

Further reading on the Mara/Rama story. See the Valmiki chapter, the thief became the sage who wrote the Ramayana.

Bonus pictures of the cat right before she bites me for paying subscribers…