New Year waves make landfall along the coast

And among the oohs and aahs

From onlookers, it becomes apparent

How many things are made by beating.
Those smooth rocks the kids all

Slip down like slides, are only possible

Because the sea beat the edges

Off them. They were once sharp
Enough to cut glass but

Thousands of years of violence

Will take that from you, no worries there.

Even the cliffs we all perch on
And the mountains high overhead

Wouldn’t be here without some

Malevolence, some angry force that once

Struck the borders of the country
Until they were shaped more appropriately.

It stunned a lot of people at first, to learn

That the world was made the same way;

That great objects beat together
In space, produced all of us.

Perhaps it’s not such a surprise then that

We take to it with such ease. As natural

As sea water down a flat stone.