Taking Chances

I dip my toe in to test you...
I make creases upon your surface,
Not to age you quickly,
But rather to touch you before it's too late,
Before the sun and moon platoon
And the tides come to drive me away.

I erect a sand castle on your bank,
A maquette of our future home,
Won't you lap its edges,
Gently molding its pillars to the soil?
It'll have bowers for you to retreat to
If I'm ever too suffocating;
But know all I've ever wanted was to hold you
In a place we can call our own.

You're visual ecstasy—
The paradigm of natural beauty,
Muse of Homer,
Domicile of Neptune,
And of labyrinthine reefs
And mythical creatures,
Sunken treasures—
Too decorated to have me as an ornament...

But still I dip in my toe to test you,
And having seen the ripples,
I can say I touched you
Before it was too late...
That I took a chance with a monolith
Before the sun and moon platooned,
And the tides came to drive me away.


—Kevin Waring