He wont go in, I asked him.
He said it is too c-c-cold.
It is February, someone said.
I thought it was warmer here,
that's what you said,
Spoke the brother man
I just met,
he then looked at
me.
He pretended to be misled
by the change in latitude.
Lightly making light
of this ceremonious process.
I looked around
for any familiar
faces.
The sun setting
cast a candle glow
on all of them.
The wind picked up
random pieces,
stirring us
salt and water
with mixed drinks.
Fifty-five and a half million lives lost
every year-two dozen ships sink.
"Relatively," I confessed,
unrelated to any
body.
And we were oceanside
all together,
a family,
not mine but with me doing this rite,
the ships sailed back to the harbor,
we all watched the pterodactyls pass
hugging the shoreline,
then seagulls in vees
watching us hug back.
We saw him now
scale down the riprap,
clutching the carved wooden box
in his left hand,
the waves rushed in to
meet him first
and he did not look back at us
looking over the edge
once.
He would not hear
the group of us
cheering
this man, these two men in the sea
fighting to stand,
fighting to let go
the sand, the ashes
and I saw that he was sobbing.
Silently, softly,
his shoulders shook
against the crisp horizon
in the last light
of that day.
He would have wanted it that way
is all his golden child could
grasp onto long enough
to say...
(This evening now gone,
peaceful bones, now resting deep
I thank the tide
for the grainy souls
it keeps
moving us
to live
without
wasting any more time)
Painting by William Bauly Lithography by Sarony, Major & Knapp [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
