The Gods of Water

A thirty-four foot bronze statue 
of Neptune looks out over the oceanfront,
trident in one hand and loggerhead turtle
in the other. Two dolphins and an octopus
clamber up the statue's stone base. I know
there's more than one god of water, more 
than one god of fire and more than one 
story about the way this earth was created, 
which creature holds its core steady. Otherwise, 
the underworld is an idea too strange to fathom. 
Too difficult to think of how, when a wave recedes 
so far and so clean out to the horizon, it could 
return with such force to be an act of judgment.