The Hungry Sea

The waves on the beach are Gulping, slurping and chewing At the sandy shoreline. The ocean is voracious. Inch by inch, foot by foot It eats away our carefully mapped Continents and islands, Devouring great bites of Seaside dunes and cliffs, Reshaping the land in one place Spitting out the sand in others To fortify an island, to add Wider and wider shores to a land A thousand miles away. We build seawalls and jetties, We add revetments of stone, But we cannot contain the sea, Whose force can break Great ships asunder. From the sea rose the land, And over millenniums, to the sea It will finally return. And we mortals, whose birthplace Was the great salt ocean will Also return from whence we came. Will the sea itself then disappear And all return to fiery solar dust?