Maybe enough light • to score a wave • reflecting moonlight, sand • reflecting
moonlight and you • spotting from shore • what you see only • as silhouette
against detonating bands • of blue-white effervescence • when the crown of the
falling • swell explodes upward • as the underwave blows through it • a flash
of visibility quickly • snuffed by night • the surf fizzling and churning •
remitting itself to darkness • with a violent stertor • in competition with no other
sounds
paddling through dicey backwash • the break zone of • waist-high NW swell •
as into a wall of obsidian • indistinguishable from night sky • diving under,
paddling fast • and before I sit • one arm over my board • I duck and •
listen a moment underwater • to the alien soundscape • not daytime’s clicks and
whines of • ship engines and sonar • but a low-spectrum hum • the acoustic
signature of fish, squid, • crustaceans rising en masse • to feed at the surface I
feel • an eerie peacefulness veined with fear