Poseidon, the Earth-Shaker

In Book Five of the Odyssey, Odysseus is finally within sight of home when the sea itself turns against him. Poseidon, the Earth-Shaker, the dark-maned lord of the deep has not forgotten that this man blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. So he gathers the clouds, takes up his trident, and calls every wind down onto a single raft.   This is that moment made solid. Not a calm sea-king on a throne, but the god rising out of his own storm: the wave curling into a fist beneath him, the trident already lifted, the grudge that will keep a hero wandering for ten more years.   Homer never lets us forget that the sea has a memory, and a temper. I wanted the base to carry that: the water isn't scenery, it's Poseidon's will taking shape.   Sculpted as a single figure rising from a sculptural mass of sea, so the wave does the storytelling instead of a second character competing for the eye.