From The Third Storm Riddle: Hurricane Poem by Maryann Corbett

Sometimes, working at the world's surface,
I must roil waves, must wrangle currents
to force the flood-waters' flint-gray spate
back at the beaches. Spray-flecked breakers
whack the walls of cliffs. The water
dimly beneath them heaves. The deep
is a mountain, looming. Lurking in its wake,
mud-churned, murky, another one moves
so that soon these breach the high-ground barriers
ashore. Now ships groan, their hulls shattered-
creaking of keels and cries of seamen
mix with the idiot moaning of the wind.
Above, standing staunchly, the steep
stone walls wait, wait for the water,
for high, hard waves in hammering swells
to crush them. What chance for pleasure craft,
their hands, their guests, in that ghastly time,
if the sea scoop them and scour and smash
their rudders away? Bereft, wretched,
they buck on the back of the storm-wind beast.
Of the many miseries I make known to men
this is one merely, a master I must serve,
stern in my purpose. Who can still him?