WAT E R I S THE M O ST P OWE R F UL EL EMENT Nancy Cook it will overwhelm the earth, defy the wind, expunge fire. Superior will mock your stamina, magnify the sun, crush your limbs, deprive you of your voice. It’s easy to forget, standing back to the land, the grass, the trees, the cedar-planked house on high ground: ahead only the hypnotic rhythm of green and gray and blue of green and gray and blue like psalms being sung in church imparting the illusion of serenity ahead, only the horizon, steady, straight, and on that other shore - have faith a harbor. The tide subsides and surges, subsides and surges, and draws into itself idle imaginations. The rowboat, freshly painted, is tied up to the dock and bobbing on the current. Gentle now, the surf, but clouds are suiting up in gray, mustering, and beginning their boast. The danger is real, my dreams are not, and the boat is so small. I fear drowning, yet ankles awash, grip on the hull, I am aware only of temptations and such possibilities.
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