King of the Proud

Oh, great and mighty ancient terror of the high seas

Untouchable by sword, by spear, even man's harpoon

Your nostrils flame, mouth ringed with fearsome teeth

When you rise the brave falter and retreat in their fear

As so the light retreats away from your tremendous size

Leaving only your winding shadow and frothing sea wake

Yet do you also not kneel and bow before your creator?

So fierce and terrible, nothing but a serpent before the One

Used to teach humility’s lesson to lonesome and broken Job

Made along with Man, like Behemoth too, both from dust

Destined to return to dust, buried under blooming lotus

Like your fellow dragons, wyrms, and great terrible lizards

Are you gone from this Earth? Lying forever beneath as fossil?

Nothing more than a memory of the waves you once ruled

With thrashing tail, shielded back and fire sparking mouth

The One does not fail to speak of your great strength, Leviathan

Most alive in the rebuke of Job, your true form and name, lost

Often reduced by our meek understanding and view of nature

To be nothing more than brethren of the still living crocodilian

Do you still prowl and stalk the depths? Hidden and patient

Waiting for trial and tribulation to resurface and strike like sword!

Perhaps your strength and graceful form has left this world?

Making way for us lesser and more fragile beings of pride

Nothing on earth was your equal, without fear or weakness in body

Though fishhook cannot pull, and hunter's arrow will not pierce

King over all that are proud, was our pride perhaps too much?