The Mariner’s Lament in the Shadowed Grove

His heart, a compass skewed by phantom north,
Still yearned for shores where memory’s lanterns gleamed—
A cottage veiled in dusk’s embrace, the hearth
Where laughter danced though seas had swept him, deemed
A ghost by men who marked his empty chair.
The forest breathed; its shadows stripped him bare.

“O wraiths of leaf and loam,” he cried, “unfold
The path once trod by feet now bound to clay!
Let not Time’s ivy choke what I behold—
Her smile, the child’s hands that waved away—
But guide me through this labyrinthine night
To yester’s light, to love’s extinguished rite.”

A sigh arose, not born of earthly breeze,
And mist took form as figures half-remembered:
A woman’s eyes, twin pools of storm-tossed seas,
A boy’s small sword from willow branch dismembered.
They beckoned through the veil of twilight’s shroud,
Their voices woven into tempests loud.

“Beloved shade!” he gasped, and gave pursuit,
Though briars scored his palms with ruby gems.
The grove convulsed, its branches twisting mute
To bar the way with claw-like diadems,
While roots erupted, ghastly and alive,
To bind his ankles as the phantoms thrived.

Three moons waxed full above the sylvan court
Where specters feasted on his fevered tread.
He fed on berries bitter as report
Of home’s decay, on hope’s illusion fled,
Yet still pursued the mirage through the thorns
That scored his flesh like memory’s merciless thorns.

At last, where twin oaks formed a rotted arch,
He glimpsed the truth in death-globe mushrooms’ glow—
No cottage waits beyond the forest’s march,
No hearth still burns where tides of years may flow.
The child’s laugh? An owl’s derisive call.
The wife’s embrace? The ivy’s clinging pall.

Then came the final vision, stark and clear:
A grave-stone weathered by unheeded rains,
His own name carved by hands he once held dear,
Now dust beneath these unforgiving planes.
The forest laughed in rustling undertow—
A sailor’s soul too late to drown below.

He sank, his fingers tracing epitaphs
In loam that drank his tears like ancient wine.
The pines sang requiems on nature’s behalf,
Their lullaby a thorned and twisted vine
That crowned his brow with leaves of ashen hue
As roots embraced what ocean’s arms eschew.

Now wanderers who brave the wood’s deep breast
May hear his voice in fog that clings like chains,
A barter’d man who traded final rest
To chase the past through ever-dimming lanes.
The grove keeps well its lesson, grim and true:
No exile finds the home that memory slew.