Wanting

[In case I don't get a chance to post any more of Ashes this week, I'm posting something more bite-size and shamelessly prosaic. ShaaaaZAM!]

Wanting
Fire. All fire ever does is want. It wants and it moves and it consumes and, if it stops, it dies. The fire has to keep going, and keep setting other things on fire, until, eventually, it fades, leaving behind only the things it changed. In this, it lives forever.

But the ocean, it seems, is always sleeping. It moves constantly but never goes anywhere; it speaks but never says a thing. What on earth could the ocean ever want?

The truth is that the ocean doesn't want anything on earth.

The ocean wants the moon.

Every moment of its existence, the ceaseless swishing ocean has stretched to reach its faraway dream. To look at it pining, we would think its effort foolish; this sea will never reach far enough to touch the silver surface of our distant alabaster satellite. What we don't realize is that, as the ocean reaches, it changes everything around it--breaking down cliffs, consuming beaches, breaching every breath of wind and weather across the breadth of the earth--without once meaning to.

And, someday, the moon will tumble from its high and holy pedestal and the sea will embrace it, fondly, fully, fiercely, as always they were meant to do.

Seeing this--that fire wants all things, yet the ocean only one--I say it proudly: I am oceanfolk.