Wood and Ships
I can smell wet wood in the wind, hear the sound of masts breaking.
Eyes straight ahead, I stand staring straight into a tempest.
I stand, my brow tipped down by tarnished gold, watching the tide rise and fall, watching wood and ships, dreams and opportunities, rising and falling on the edge, dancing in the waves.
Which of these things to save from the water’s edge?
A sailboat half sunk in the sand, wrapped in it’s own shredded wing?
A future, caught in the seagrass, covered in barnacles…
A life, slowly bleeding ink, as the pages fall barren to the persistent saltwater.
When the tide goes out, will it take these lovely paths with it, out to sea, into the depths?
Yes, misfortunate moments may fall like a thunderbolt, or crash like thunder’s deep, harsh echo across a roiling sea.
Yes, The howling wind may rise, but the true danger is that thing, that beast of the water that rises from the abyss, and slowly claims more and more as it’s own.
The key to its halt l believe, has already sank, and I in my foolish naivete failed to claim it. Although it was not a goliath then.
I was warned by many beyond my years, covered in scars from battles I could not yet fathom fighting.
That I should build strong walls and deep reservoirs.
That I should raise my land above the coastal plain, and stockpile food.
Why couldn’t I see then?
It keeps moving, on and on like a great wheel.
That thing.
It already claimed more than I’d like to admit from the shores of my life, my kingdom.
I’d hate at this moment, for those last feeble dykes to break, letting in that tide, Time.
I fear less death, than the rising sea I cannot hope to stop.
A life not lived, to me, is less mournful than a life unfulfilled.
Still I forge on, in foolish battle with water, to carve a path, not perfect, not the highest, or driest, but wide and far reaching, with many friendly faces along the way.
I’d like to think that lives are not made of the mighty and majestic fortresses which sneer down at the top of indomitable mountains, but the backroads and alleys, trails and cottages, and little happy, ramshackle, moments below.
