Sometimes they rise like whales leaping from deep
sea, catching us off guard on our small raft
where we’ve floated semiconscious, mind steeped
in ego, as if this ocean, our craft
existed only for us. Caught in wake
of great ascension, then sudden impact,
no control over unrelenting wave
carrying us back toward faded contact
with distant shore, memory once blinded
flows clear in pristine coves we briefly sight
like Ulysses swept past Charybdis, head
suddenly twirling in swirling tide’s might,
then abruptly stopped, sapped and prone on beach,
longing for home we feel we’ll never reach.
Roger Armbrust
April 19, 2008
