I recently wrote a poem about waves

and about Katsushika Hokusai’s great wave,

a woodblock print, nicely colored and believable.

In the poem I mention the waves of my childhood beach

called “Horseneck” beach and how the waves were

wetter than Hokusai’s wave which is understandable.

I also mentioned Horesneck surfers as a fill-in to the poem where

they really didn’t belong.

but their presence got me thinking about motion, about

what moves us from one place to another.

Hokusai’s tremendous wave holds a couple of long boats

paddling into it. these are “Oshiokuri-Bune” boats,

fishing barges, each holding a dozen or so riders.

the boats move as the sea moves and as the paddles take them.

this is like an escalator going up with multiple riders: they move

as the escalator moves them, but––

on the escalator, no paddles are needed.

inside the Buick Roadmaster, the mechanisms of the machine

move it forward but the road lays motionless and flat,

just like the paper holding Hokusai’s beautiful wood-block wave print.

what an amazing, wonderful world we live in if we know how to look.

USA! Out of North America!