Canute’s Tsunami

The sea was the whole world once:

it gave way (tectonically,

unwillingly, agonisingly slowly)

to land’s impatient, turgid thrust

but it has fought a slow and

asymmetric war ever since,

evaporating into the rain that

crumbles Everests into

the rotten stumps of teeth,

swallowing ships,

colluding with the Moon to

heap high tides on low coasts

and using Earth’s writhings to

unleash great waves of

unsowable salt over arable soil.

 

People are collateral damage in this war,

as irrelevant as cobwebs.

The sea will have back its dominion

and our folly is to think

we can stop it.