The Tempest’s Lament: A Reverie of Salt and Time

“O, cruel Leviathan of brine and foam,”
He cries, “why taunt me with your stolen hoard?
You stole her laughter, left my heart a loam
Where ghosts of yesteryears still swing their swords!”
The sea, unyielding, hurls its silvered mane,
And licks the rocks with tongues of spiteful green.
No answer comes but thunder’s old refrain—
The storm’s black lungs exhale what once had been.

Once, on this verge, a boy with sun-kissed cheeks
Would chase his sister through the marram grass,
Their footprints pressed in sand for fleeting weeks
Before the surf ordained their swift repass.
Her hair, a banner bright as dandelion wine,
Streamed like a comet’s trail against the sky.
They built their kingdoms where the shore’s confine
Held pirate ships and dragons in their eye.

But dusk by dusk, the sea’s insidious song
Would hum of depths where mortal feet decline,
And in her gaze, a yearning, fierce and strong,
To dance atop the waves’ elusive spine.
“Dear brother,” sighed she, “when I wed the tide,
You’ll find me riding steeds with pearl-laced manes.
Each crest shall bear my voice, each breeze my guide—”
He laughed, not knowing passion’s price in chains.

One eve, the ocean donned a sapphire gown,
And lured her past the reef’s jagged embrace.
He watched her wade where twilight’s fingers drown,
Her form dissolved in mercury and lace.
No grave but currents, cold and ever-wise,
No shroud but kelp that braids her phantom bones.
The shore became a psalm of muffled cries,
A cradle rocked by mercy’s missing tones.

Now, decades gone, he treads the frayèd path
Where memory’s ivy chokes the crumbling wall.
The cottage, choked by thorns and Time’s slow wrath,
Echoes with footsteps that no longer call.
Her doll, once clutched through every storm’s harsh bray,
Sits eyeless in the attic’s ashen gloom—
A sentinel of joys the tides filched away,
A silent judge in that dust-choked room.

Yet here he stands, where winds and waves conspire,
His soul a parchment scrawled with blotted years,
And begs the tempest, “Fan one final fire—
Let me breach Time’s veil, or drown in tears!”
The gale responds with needles of salt rain,
And through the squall, a voice, both frail and clear,
As if the sea had siphoned past his pain
To resurrect the tones he ached to hear:

“O brother mine, why cling to shores that shift?
The past’s a shell—too fragile to reclaim.
Each wave that breaks is both a gift and rift—
You mourn a shadow, yet bear its true name.”
He staggers, pierced by sorrow’s keening edge,
And stumbles toward the ledge where spray and sky
Collide in chaos. “Take me to her ledge!”
He roars, arms wide, as lightning forks reply.

The ocean, ravenous, ascends the stone,
Its maw agape with fangs of rabid spray.
It clasps his ankles, drags him to its throne—
A king reclaimed by liquid disarray.
No struggle mars his face, now calm, now bright,
For in the whirlpool’s prismed, swirling core,
He sees her—childhood’s guardian of light—
Reach through the storm to clasp his hand once more.

The cliffs bear witness, silent as the grave,
As man and memory merge in one dire sweep.
The tide withdraws, its appetite depraved,
And leaves the world to whispers, raw and deep.
No tombstone marks where twin souls interlace,
No dirge but gulls that wheel in wild lament.
The sea, eternal, wears no trace of grace—
Its breast remains a vault of what is spent.

Yet on still nights, when waves assume a hymn
And moonlight stitches silver through the foam,
Two voices dance where horizon’s edge grows dim—
A duet sung in tongues of brine and loam.
They speak of castles built on shifting sand,
Of laughter sieved through Time’s unyielding mesh,
Of how the heart, though broken, still can stand
To yearn for shores where love and loss enmesh.

But mortals, passing, hear no phantom choir,
Only the surf’s recital, cold, profound.
They pause, perhaps, to feel a vague desire
For something just beyond thought’s furrowed ground.
The old man’s name, now etched in salt and air,
Is but a ripple on the water’s cheek—
A testament to those who dare to stare
Into the abyss where past and present speak.

Thus ends the tale, though tides refuse to cease—
Each crash a requiem, each ebb a lie.
For what is grief but love that seeks release?
And what are waves but questions asked of sky?
The cliff remains, though weathered to its bones,
A sentinel to hopes the deep entombs.
The sea, indifferent, grinds the ancient stones,
And in their dust, a childhood’s laughter blooms.