When waves land on a beach, there is action: splashing, wetness, a cool splooshy sound. Then, there is inaction. This inaction between the splooshes is not failure, it is simply inaction. The next action will come when it is ready, and it will be a success, because waves are always successful.

I stood by the ocean the day I heard
feeling the weight of the wind under deep dark clouds,
taking photographs that now you'll never see--
and I remember when you were here, and we pondered
thinking of the forests we grew up around
and the other shore, closer to there but rarely visited--
we wondered, that afternoon
whether this coast was merely another continent,
or a whole different planet.