Tumbling Rocks, Storm Surf

Walking in the salt-tinged rain this morning brought us to our senses.  Or rather, it brought our senses more to life.  We heard the loud crack of giant rocks banging and clacking in the surf while cold drizzle coated our jackets and faces.  The tossing and tilting waves spewed salt-laden mist heavy with kelp, fish and wet earth.  Debris thrown on the walking path crunched under our feet like glass.

The ocean's watery hand is violent and unrelenting in its insistent pounding.  Life and death intertwine, trading places often.  There is no room for weakness or ambivalence when the tide rises and waves are roaring.  Some parts of the shore are piled up with shredded heaps of kelp ripped up during the last storm.  It lies in acrid mounds, rotting and decaying, washing back into the surf in shreds and bits.

Shore birds unable to dodge and lift above breakers are broken themselves.  Cracked shells and legs of sand crabs, anemones and mollusks have been scattered by both waves and other stronger birds.  Constantly, the smacking whump of wave after wave continues, beating hard against slowly eroding granite rocks.  As if forming a zone of indecision,  loose boulders roll from the earth to the water and back again, and you can hear the crackling boom as they are pushed by tons of water.

The potent and primal admixture of cool misty air, rough dark rocks and tumbling waves reduces all things to a struggle between life and death, a drama that continues from dark to light and dark again, ceaselessly.