Sunday Surf Poem–Hurricane Warning: Surfers by Peter Makuck

Sunday Surf Poem is here. And today we’ll be sharing Hurricane Warning: Surfers. It was published in May 1998 and written by Peter Makuck, an American poet, short story writer, and critic.

Want to hear it instead? There’s a micro-pod for that.

According to Wikipedia, Makuck’s poems “repeatedly explore the themes of epiphany and second chances; of the relations of mystery, grace, and beauty; and of the revelatory effects of jolts of violence.”

hurricane warning: surfers

by Peter Makuck

Around the bend slides an ocean eerie with storm light
and them at serious play: red and yellow wet suits, blue
and lime, their unconcern a reminder of something
long forgotten but now too strong to let go. Wind tugs
our pants and sleeves and has our hair fly back
like spume from the crests of fifteen footers rolling in.
We lean against the wind and hear the fringe
of pampas grass threshing above the beach
where these boys worry not a jot for tomorrow
and make light of the leaden swells—
a dream of Waimea Bay and the ache
of endless summer come at last to the Carolinas.

Oblivious of snapping red flags,
riptides and undertows, they wait and wait
for the one moment to lift them,
a force evolving shape within us,
making us wait too, smile when the curl
flexes and tilts them ahead
toward a lethal bottom of sand.

How they tame the edge, gravity giving way
to a grace of their own making!
Some miss the moment and wait still,
and when we leave the island, exiled inland,
I’m not even thinking of our house
turned to matchwood. Days later,
through sweaty hours of shingle and tack,
chainsaw and tree limb, I still see
that boy farthest out, the one waiting past friends,
now up in one motion, his wetsuit blazing orange,
ready to defy all ruin.

Author: The Wipeout Weekly team