Swimming in a Stormy Ocean

Walking home with the rain on my back
Pattering the puddles that I wade through
I think of the singular pleasure of the stormy sea.

A black mass of storm swims in from the south:
The sky is leaden and foreboding.
Dive into the shallow sea.
There are no waves; only mountains of froth
Colliding and separating and whirling
Diving horizontally with no regard of what a wave should be
And you are jumping, twisting to keep your head above
But laughing with mania at the great sea-gods
Whose winds rake grooves in the water.

And the energy you feel, even before the rain begins
Before it comes spitting harshly down on your shoulders
But when it does you feel you can leap over the waves
The highest foam flecked towers
Raked with the wind and pummelled by the rain, like you.

And standing on shore at the end
To look on the seething animal you were part of;
White glimpses of mountaintops receding to the horizon
A lonely bird struggles so elegantly with the sky
The wind stings your naked chest and raindrops fly in your eyes
But you know, as Calvin said, what it is to feel alive,
Gloriously alive, however temporarily.

true story.
North Carolina, Afternoon 11th August 2006