OCEAN OF TRANQUILITY

                                     

I was standing with my 5-year-old godson on the beach by water’s edge.

“The beach is my favorite place, Baba. It’s like God.”

“I feel the same way, Toby. We can share that now.”

Wind like the sound of AUM rumbles in my ear, caresses my skin, Divine Mother’s touch. I watch him there in his new oversized ball cap digging at surf’s edge. White foam tumbles out of the blue gray Atlantic, reaching for him, time and time again; myriad tendrils of foam yearning to touch this small boy playing under the universe.

Every now and then he pops up and runs back and forth with it like a sandpiper … laughing all the while.

I am older now. All the scars have weight. Each day I work through the pain of mistake after mistake, trying not to let remorse win, seeking the flow of divine witness. I have to just keep doing the next right thing.

An old, once upon a time, China Fleet sailor sitting here watching this child play at surf’s edge, indefatigable and I know … the cycle continues. Like the ebb and flow of the tide, my remorse fades as the sea calls me home, blessed home … into eternity.

As a youth I railed my plaintive cry; “I seek to find the eyes to see existence’ ocean of tranquility.”

Finally it is done.

For now.