What the sea hath wrought

Remember the old bench that sat on the edge of the sea, steps from the house? Yes, that one;  a place for gentle contemplation. Well, keep that memory because it’s no longer there. It is no longer there. . . unless you acknowledge that a destroyed mix of rusted iron, and weather stained slats that lie in broken ruin on the grass to be  that bench; waiting in twisted discomfort for an occupant or two.  No, I’m afraid a brutal storm struck in the dark of night, turning the incoming tide into a fury of destruction. Mountainous waves were instrumental in its demise, along with many feet of the garden. Here , lying in broken ruin, is what has become of my seaside bench. Sharer of hours of  dreaming it lies shattered and beyond repair in its own nightmare. I had begun this tale of garden woe yesterday, wishing to have you commiserate with me on certain elements of  the that particular storm's damage,  but a much more powerful one following quickly in the previous one's wake, came raging  in to attack the shoreline below us with ever more savagery. Today the story is more brutal. During the night it raged unseen in the darkness as it roiled the waves, but to me, as I stood watching the turgid sea in the gray, rain pelted early morning light, its anger seemed  greater than in the hours before. Ripping into the rain soaked reclaimed land forming the border of the garden it  pulled back into itself yards of lawn and graveled soil,  tearing out a mighty gap beyond the high tide line as it pulled away the supporting wall. The old bench, pushed or thrown yards away from where it lay after the first attack,  became part of a melee of  logs, rocks, and sea waste wildly tumbling along the garden; powerfully, blindly tossed about, its rusted metal legs and sun baked slats destroyed even further.
Now, the aftermath! Oh! Yes! The aftermath! Not of great consequence in the world – there are devastations of much more import – but no matter. Those in the  audience waiting to see for themselves this minor “ fury of the sea” are, I’m sure, looking forward to comparing the before and after. Well, here it is; nature at work, rough but not extraordinary, simply “Mother”, doing her thing. I mean. . . she’s entitled. Maybe we will never understand her moods, but she certainly lets us share them.