My daughter sleeps to the sound of the ocean
softly, gently rocked
forth and afar into dreams and nightmares
a soft static blanket
the assonance of water
My daughter sleeps
to the sound of an ocean that she has never heard
a loop of imagined waves that have
never wet her feet
she has never run screaming and laughing
from the imagined horrors of seaweed, foam
Tangaroa’s arms enfolding her
As my daughter sleeps, I cry
as salty as the swells she’s never seen
in this landlocked room
slowly falling from my cheek
to land on hers
a soft saline baptism
As my daughter sleeps, my thoughts fly
wondering how I can fill her
with the awe that something as elemental
something as capricious
something as beautiful
can exist in this tattered world
but still, my daughter sleeps
I grew up on and in the Pacific. It's wild and elemental, and I miss it dreadfully.. now my daughter sleeps to a loop of the sound of the ocean and it struck me as ironic that she dreams to something she has experienced.