On Wings of Waves

This page contains the full text of the poem On Wings of Waves. Click on the ear to hear the poem as you read it.

    HOME      PAGE ONE

         ON WINGS OF WAVES
                 

On the wings of waves, fly with me
To a pile of cinders in the middle of the sea
To a pile of wonders and mysteries
Jostled by science and history

On the wings of waves, fly with me
To a land that bubbled from bottom of the sea
Percolating for thousands of centuries
Rising out of nowhere as if magically

On the wings of waves, fly with me
To a crown of jewels sticking out of the sea
To a crop of crags at once desolate and free
To a simple row of bumps with personality

To a rough and rugged tumble-scape
Purled by crash-and-rumble cape
Where rock and water in constant collision
Yield shape and form in perpetual transition

Red, hot, rolling ooze
Slowed to a crawl by dancing blue
Rendered jagged and molten black
Then washed away in a rhythmic attack

Liquid to solid, rock to land
Mountain to boulder, stone to sand
Motion petrified, stillness stirred
A steady trickle of change in Time's constant current

An ebb and a flow, a give and a take
A hiss and a splash, a tremble and a quake
Swell to wave, wave to mist
Vitality emerging from barrenness

A wrinkle, a ripple, a fissure, a crack
A taking away and a giving back
A budding, a birth, a twist and a novelty
Destruction struggling against creativity

To a world of wonder and mystery
A pile of cinders in the middle of the sea
As far as you can get from ordinary
On the wings of waves, fly with me

HOME     PAGE ONE

© 2007 OneWorld Classrooms. Text by Paul Hurteau. Photos by Dennis Pippen, except where noted. All rights reserved.