shoulder: the part of a wave away from it’s vertical break.

                                            bowl: shallows where the wave is drawing up water.
                                           trough: the lower portion of a wave, in relation to it’s peak.
 
 
  I have always been attracted to large powerful shoulders, the 
ones with the smooth ripples, and their abilities. They lift you,
protect from danger. Begin to learn, and it’s the waves, the sea.
The shoulder is where they lift you by the tail and push forward.
That’s when the feeling starts in the hips. Hips tilt slightly, lift
and you feel it firming when your need for any control melts into
pure pleasure, a willing release to the wave. They take control, 
you slide. Back arching, push yourself up with your arms, hands 
pressed flat to the hard, waxed board. Together as one, pushing 
them down, while lifting yourself. When you rise, with knees bent,
your legs spread themselves, (some ancient instinctual knowing 
of the body) wide, stable and comfortable. Yes, it’s just right,
the angle for thrusting comes as a surprise you feel, and know.
 
                 dressed in light cloth
               as we slide onto waves—
                                  intoxicated
 
  Pushing forward with flexed hips, holding on with nothing but your 
curled toes, waves drop you onto themselves. A deepening moment
for just this, then you are ready for the coming together of timeless
release. Above the glistening turbulent bowl below the compressed
slickened currents of the rising trough, your body knows what to do.
The feeling of power in your thighs, the strength, where hip-shifting 
presssure starts rolling into rhythm. You rise, reaching, again toward 
their wet lip, curling, crashing over and enveloping whole who you are.
 
 
                          this is how we learn
                      we all ride the same wave—
                         right there! whale song