-Gripping Blue-
I saw a ship along the coast
Long since skeletal
Her belly impaled on the blades of rock that surely killed her
The frozen violence of her death lay bare before me
To see her was to be assaulted by the scene of her
Possessed by her fate
A cacophonous onslaught of image and sense
Vivid and imposing
In mind or eye, there she was
Still dying
And yet, here she lay
The story complete
A grave in low tide
How haunting she must be in the light of the moon, barely visible beneath the placid dark on a mild night
Her corpse
The illusion of permanence
Imperceptably decaying day after day
I wondered as to her story and the lives she bore
She must have completed many a voyage
Weathered storms untold
Crossed treacherous waters
Sheltered in disparate ports
And welcomed the lives of her charges in the refuge of her body
Had she thought herself sturdy or swift?
How heartbreaking the truth must have seemed in the waning hours of her bloodless death
Did any else die, or was she lonely in the last moments of her watery paralysis?
I felt I could see her there on whatever fateful day it was when she went off course
Helpless in the grip of a hungry sea
Skittering crew
Panicked and frantic
Had they run to deck in the dead of night?
Bare in their briefs
Hoping for better
Only for terror to swallow them whole
There atop the body of a failing vessel
How cold their choices must be
Tides are strong
Rocks are sharp and many
Beneath foaming force and against pitiless rock, where do you go?
On ship or in the maw of blue and white are you free?
Or...
Perhaps it had not ended so dire for the lives aboard
Perhaps they had gone on
Had it scarred them, if they had?
A wound on the story of their lives
Was the desecration of her seaworthy form lodged in their hearts?
Whatever their fate hers was clear as the liquid glass that was her tomb
Pulled or pushed or blown
Tossed and battered and punctured
Flooded and invaded
How wrenching the failure of her frail body must have been
It did not matter the design of her build
Nor the cleverness of her captain
Whatever glory had been hers rendered mute by the passions of a petulant and treacherous shoal
Time goes on, but still she remains in the sea of my mind
Desperate & adrift among tempestuous waters
Going again and again to our ruin
...
She never left, nor did I
