The Sea

by CWK

It hardly profits that a weary mind

in this dark night should peer past

human knowledge into God’s to find

the truth of things untrue. Lying

sleepless upon a battered mast,

whilst floating lonely in a starless,

stormy, sea, I see: knowing, I know less.

Finding, I have less, not more;

searching, I am never nearer shore.

Sea upon sea sprawls before me

in vast recess, with mystery e’r stored.

Sight in hind, sight declines most

when ‘pon past miseries trained;

for miseries o’rwhelm life and love,

and cover the good disclosed:

like frost upon the rose.

Yet, I sift ‘mong the memories. I hunt

for slivers of light in shade:

Convinced, there lives

in shadows, brighter days. Sane

I may not be, and dancing shadows give

little light; but what light I have,

I cherish – lest at last my last light perish,

and my last hope be undone.

‘Cross long travels and dreary distances

I recall only a single season of repose.

It was a long time ago, perhaps fancy,

and nothing more, when I was happy

in a place not so unlike a home.

Some seven suns ago, upon the Isle

of Numenor, I capsized and spent

a summer drinking Miruvor in mild

sunshine.  The women deemed me wild,

but harmless all the same. The men

deemed me wise, and to a man, a friend.

By all I was beloved; by all, esteemed.

But summer hasted onward, and unrest

began to grow.  For, the Island’s absent king

imposed a tax for past protection.

A demand, it seemed to me, in keeping

with proper fealty of subjection.

But, the men of the Isle were incensed,

and felt their honor sore offended.

For my part, I reckoned the hostility

a nuisance: a distraction soonly ended.

As mad men planned revolt; I laughed,

objected mildly, and scarcely dreamed of war.

Scarcely, but battle plans belied me,

and the Isle grew louder, crueler, bored;

for blood they were restless, and for

freedom of a sort denied to mortal men.

The king threatened; still, the fools boasted more,

and more. At last, the king's anger 

above his mercy soared,

and he grew wroth to settle scores.

I suppressed fear, but feared more;

I protested betimes contention, and hoped –

in folly – that peace would be restored.

 I declined to a kind of idle foolish ease,

and ignored all signs of certain strife

—until, on the day the first bite of Fall fell,

I woke a month into the war

to the sound of siege alarm, and the smell

of blood on blade,

and the cries of widows made.

I emerged, sleepy, dazed –

fires raged, and the stench of death

filled my heart, and cursed my far

flung dream of a home upon this sea.

I beheld men and women fleeing toward,

and away from, war. In the city center,

savaged, I beheld an infant standing,

famished, before a dessicated fountain.

I wept for orphans walking, lonely,

toward the citadel in the mountain.

For, by then, the mountain was no more.

I crawled across carnage to my little ship

as the Isle sank, and with luck, escaped – I only.