Image source
There’s a ship in the harbour just for me. A bright white sail flapping against the winds of time. It traversed a great ocean and sailed home to me like an arrow, straight and true . He’s here after all this time and my heart races towards the shore so that I can capture a snapshot of his beautiful face, his soul is there, incarnate.
I trip and stumble on the path, it’s not a smooth road. Boulders abound ahead of the breakers and I wonder why it’s so hard, why the route is so fraught with perilous obstacles that seem thrown there by grand design. But I make my way, resolute if not quite sure footed… I make my way.
Where the clouds meet the waves, where the day breaks from a night’s dream, I see the bright, bright emblem affixed to the stern. Oh, it calls, it beckons me forth and I run.
My skirts are incongruous, they cause distress, I try to flatten them, move them aside so that they don’t stay my cause. But the wind blows hoops into my view and I can’t find a rung or a ladder. The crew stare down at me, they’re no help at all.
A gull screeches a melancholy tune then flits in a gusty portent to fly black against the sun. I shield my eyes to get a better view and the deck grows silent, embarrassed at my distraction. They all know what I’ve come to collect. I should be single-minded, full of sorrow, and I am, but the gull was there for me too, to herald the inevitable. I thank her and find the steps.
My ascension is slow, arduously uncomfortable; it’s the skirt, the hat and the shoes, but I finally gain the deck.
There’s a somber air about the men as they look at me with their sad eyes. They’ve saved his portrait for me and they present it along with his ashes and a formal salute.