The waves are deafening silent tonight
Their callous fingers scrape the hull
A gentle easing into darkness
As a mother her child
Our frail beacon falters in the sky,
Suffocated by deep vast blue.
We do not know what lies beyond our light
And all is dark to us.
The whipping white of wind seeps and settles beneath our skin
I hold the railing with unseeing eyes.
It is numb with cold
To my touch.
If tonight would only ever roll over into dawn.
I, captain
Of this ship,
Virtuous vertigo of the seamless ebb and flow.
The plunges of those untold torrents
Live deeper in my soul than I,
I breathe and they are part of me,
To feel so infinite!
So free beyond all thought –
But the sea is too strong here.
Its hungering breath keens for more
For us and all our souls
Rising, rising, ever rising,
Waves heave themselves on board.
Night soft against my skin
I wait and measure
The extent of life, calling order.
‘Aye, Captain!’
Sinking, sinking, slowly sinking,
I see a light ahead.
Singing siren soft in sickness,
Mournful hollows of the wind
Cry out with the phantoms of men,
The hoarse chorus clashes in the air, but all seems silence now.
I reach out with desperate hand
For some last hope beyond
The light closes round me, cradling, calling
As a mother her child
And so the darkness takes me back.
