ekphastic

Searching for Safe Harbor

/ wvfurandroot / 3 Comments

I’m rowing in rough waters though it’s a waste of my precious energy.  The waves are strong, the current powerful and I am too weak to fight it any longer.

But I’m looking for a coast.  A harbor.  A place of safety to wait out the storm. To recuperate.  To perhaps find paradise.  I try to guide the boat in the direction the waves break assuming the shore is in that direction.

I no longer know where I am.

The boat is gray weathered wood and perhaps not seaworthy any longer. I’ve been out here a good long time.  There used to be days of a becalming.  Flat water and I could see the dolphins jump and play.  I could see the seabirds swoop and dive into the azure deep.  I could hear the whales and see the starfish on the ocean floor.

Now it is just water the color of the boat.  In turmoil and rage and beating rain.

Oh, for the skies to clear.  For the tide ruled by the moon to guide me to safe harbor and smooth sand.  To palm trees and brightly colored birds.  To friendly souls who will take me in and tend my wounds.

For I am wounded in the places you can’t see. My pride is wounded.  My soul.  My innermost me.  This has been the storm of a lifetime.  I didn’t see it coming though perhaps I should have.  I was just out here in my boat when the sea roughened and the skies darkened. 

The ancient ones had told me to take care when I took the boat out.  They told me the sea was not my friend.  They told me it would beat me down and that I should stay where I was and prepare for the inevitable storm. To live with storm shutters and lanterns near a lighthouse. To light a fire in my hearth and pray for the lost.

But blue skies and frothy white-capped swells called to me.  I imagined the wonders and I took off.  Alone and poorly provisioned. I am the lost. 

It has been a journey.  One with no destination of my planning other than to seek wonders.  And I have seen them.  For that I should be grateful.  I have seen things that others only dream of.  I have been captain and crew.  Jailor and prisoner.  Now I am fighting for what’s left of me.  For the real me – the one that got pushed aside while I rowed and bailed water.

I am looking for safe harbor.  Smooth sand.  A warm sun to turn my face to.  A friend to tend my wounds, give me nourishment, and help me find the hope that was my inner compass for so long.

Pray for me. I am lost.

Hush.

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment
Gabriele Corno Moonlight Shadow

Hush.

Shhhhhhhh.

Just stop. 

The earth and the moon are still.  Be quiet, be at ease but be attentive to the silence.

This is the night you will remember during the moment of your last breath, before your transformation but after your acquiescence. 

What will come is unorthodox, but beautiful.  Holy in its perfection.

Be ye not afraid.

Remember,

This too shall pass.

A September Afternoon

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

I want to walk hand-in-hand in a forest with you on a late afternoon in September. We’ll wear comfortable shoes and jeans along with light jackets.

 I want to watch the wind scuttle leaves across the path and catch the sighting of deer and teenage fawns;

The golden light is prisming through the trees and the light will catch your eyes like the radiance of a halo, magical and ethereal.

I want to walk along the river in silence stopping now and again to skim a stone or savor your lips.  I want to be wrapped in your arms as the air chills on the shore–and the wind kicks up.

I want to sit with you on a sofa in a cabin, cocooned in blankets and drinking mulled cider with a sliced candied apple on a stoneware plate making our fingers sticky–Mozart’s Jupiter wafting in the air, soft and sweet, rising, falling and then soaring.

I want to wrap you with my naked body and murmur in your ear all my secret longings.

I want you.