The Tempest’s Canvas
a man of charcoal palms and twilight eyes
stands ankle-deep in the sea’s frothing wrath,
his easel a mast on this salt-scarred path.
The waves, like hounds unchained, gnash at his thighs,
yet he paints—not the storm, but her face, her laugh,
a portrait sketched in tempests and goodbyes.
Ten winters have gnawed since she first took his hand
to trace the soft contours of some foreign land
where waves wore silk and the moon sang low—
but time, that thief, steals what brushstrokes bestow.
Her voice now lives in the crash of the strand,
her smile, a ghost in the phosphorus glow
that dies as it blooms on the ravenous sand.
He remembers the day her breath grew thin,
a candle drowned by the wind’s cruel spin.
“Promise,” she whispered, “to chase the last light,
to paint what I’ll miss when the stars drink the night.”
Her fingers, once vibrant as blooms in the spring,
fell cold as the cliffs where the seagulls take flight—
and the sea, ever hungry, began its murmuring.
Now palette knives dance in his trembling grip,
mixing saltwater with madder and crypt.
Each stroke is a dirge, each hue a lament,
as tides chant the hours her absence has lent.
The horizon, a serpent, uncoils its whip,
and thunder growls low where the cloudbreak is rent—
yet deeper he wades, though the undertow’s bent
on swallowing the light from his leaden veins.
A mastiff wave lunges, but he remains,
etching her brow in the ash of the storm,
her eyes in the lightning’s electric form.
“One moment more,” he implores the rain’s
needle-thin fingers, “let my colors swarm
the canvas before night claims her name again.”
The ocean replies with a granite fist,
shattering brushes the tempest has kissed.
Tubes of cerulean, umber, and gold
spin like lost stars in the whirlpool’s hold.
He clutches the last—a vial of amethyst,
her favorite shade, in its glassy fold—
and drinks the pigment, its bitterness hissed
into his veins like a second tide.
Vision ignites as the poison spreads wide:
the sea splits its veil, and there, in the gloom,
she glides—not a specter, but flesh, in full bloom.
Her hair is a symphony none may divide,
each curl a crescendo that drowns the tomb
of hours and years he’s been trapped inside.
“You came,” he gasps, as the waters rise,
kissing his throat with their kelp-silver sighs.
“I promised,” she murmurs, her hand on his cheek,
“to meet where the waves and the eternals speak.
The painting is finished. Look—there, in the skies.”
He turns, and beholds, through the hurricane’s shriek,
his masterpiece soaring on raven-dark dyes:
her face, not as memory’s fragile host,
but alive—every brushstroke a bridge, a coast
where time’s jagged teeth lose their power to rend.
The canvas ascends, though the storm will descend,
to hang where the dawn etches hope’s frail ghost.
She takes his hand as the deep claims its friend—
two shadows dissolved where the light and dark blend.
Morning will find, on the shale-strewn shore,
an easel uprooted, its purpose now lore.
But fishers swear, when the squall’s hymn is heard,
a man and his love, in the mist, speak no word—
just paint the long night into something more,
their hues bleeding deep where the sea is stirred,
and time, for a moment, forgets to endure.
