surf's up

he walks along the beach and
realizes this: for all the
times he walks the
route, he never,
yet, has put his
feet
into the water. In fact,
he
avoids the surf, sometimes, even athletically,
when
it crawls toward him. Given any other year
or time, he might
not
give such avoidance a second thought, but today
he
wonders:
what and why. Just another
thing
to
contemplate. Or
is
it?