My Father’s God Beneath the Waves

by Jathan Gurr

Last night, among the blue dawning night,
I felt the tide coming in.
I left the warm, white-sheeted bed
and barefoot, went down to the sea.
At the water’s edge I stood,
with cold water washing my feet.
I felt watched and watching.
The moon made shapes on the dark rippling waves,
and I imagined I saw in them
the face of my father, and his father,
and out to the horizon, all the fathers before me,
who mingled their blood with the sea
and who drank salt tears,
and danced when no one was looking.
And I whispered to the god beneath the waves,
“Make me something else,…and still man.”