this is the purpose of a wave, v1.5

do not mourn the wave
that crests and breaks
this is the purpose of a wave

I eat fresh tomatoes, avocado, white cheddar cheese from Ireland

I am the hope
lost for three years
of a new way of choruses

I am the seed
born in three years
of unknowable combustion

Listen:
Only train the ones who want it
Train them all, only a few will go deep
You cannot know who will emerge as the Ones
It is not your job to know
It is your job to answer to the Ones
to be dragged to strange and tender greatness
by their hunger
for learning
for blue-grid tilt-maps, auto-generated subtitles, clouds of pink debugging visualization lights, specular playthroughs, for wikis and basecamps and commits, for scrums, and nature walks, and will you please be more prepared, and thursdays is the only time we matter, you can't miss thursdays
for one yellow clothbound book on computational fluid-dynamics
for enough hard problems please oh god for me
for not to waste their lives
for formal shy silent patient insistence on my presence
not like actors at all
except in their wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting to be more
their willingness to devote all their waking hours
if only
someone would show
the strange elusive path

i know the path
but not from this direction
we dowse together

struggling
in our native tongues
a discourse marked by shocks, rudeness, missed connections
shot with wonder

they explain the separating axis theorem
the filigreed math
how the physics works, the bounding boxes and collision detection
why all the physics breaks
how the GPS works, and the phone, and the debugger
and i say
you matter
that is not good enough
that is not good enough
that is not good enough
that is better
you have one thing to do in the remaining three weeks, which is you must design a series of revelations to lead the player into your game
i am very proud of you
you are like lions or like clydesdales

they are like moonlight

this is the purpose of a wave

yet i am still the hope
of a new way of choruses
which is different now
because i have learned to write a thing and do it
because i have colleagues
who can do things
i don't even understand

and i have given up
on them understanding mine

we just go together
down the Ways we each can see

blind
blind
blind
growing more strange, more trusting, powerful, remote

and every tuesday at 11pm
a bacon cheeseburger with a side of ranch
an IBC rootbeer float and a double-burger with no bun
a blue-cheese burger with no onion straws & no steak sauce
a strawberry lemonade and a chocolate shake, coffee when the meal comes
and oh do you have some napkins we could write on

this is the purpose of a wave