College Poetry Assignment #6

Greedy

The afternoon sun was low on the horizon

And Luquillo Beach was empty when we arrived

My sisters took to the waves on their surfboards

While I sat with my son on the beach next to my parents

And my husband splashed in the shallows

With our three-year-old daughter

As we celebrated our first day in Puerto Rico

Listening to the sound of the sea

And as the waves lapped against my toes

I delighted in my daughter’s laughter as her daddy held her

While they jumped over the surf in waist-deep water

Only then it wasn’t waist-deep

And it was just their heads

And the waves seemed louder

And stronger

And I saw in his eyes

The panic

And I realized

He was treading water…

Treading water

Getting deeper

Trying to hold her up

But it was hard

And his head bobbed under

As he desperately tried

To keep hers up

Treading water

And the arms of the rip current

Continued to pull them out

Further into the ocean

Which now had transformed

Into something angry

I cried out for someone – anyone to help them

But the crashing waves drowned out my voice

My sisters were too far away

I knew I could not swim out there

But my father was determined to try

He swam with fierce determination to them

But the ocean was too strong

He could not help like he wanted

I found myself watching the three of them

Being overcome by the hateful deep

Which hungrily promised to take them all

I stood helpless

On the beach

With no one else around

And I cried out to God to save them

Then a miracle of divine appointment

Suddenly brought my sister across the terrible water on her surfboard

Within yards of my drowning family

Who, with their last bits of strength

Seized the floating vessel

And the greedy ocean did not win that day.

© 2011 Jessica Baldwin