The Mariner’s Lament: A Letter in the Driftwood

Then came the tempest’s howl—a dirge from depths unnamed—
That dashed his hopes like shells against the rocks of shame.
The sea, a ravening beast with jaws of froth and spray,
Engulfed his world in night, then spat him out to day.
He woke on sands as pale as bones of ancient kings,
Where shadows danced like wraiths on twilight’s tattered wings.
Before him loomed a wood, its boughs a twisted host,
Their leaves but rustling tongues to chant the dirges lost.

“What realm is this,” he cried, “where earth and dream conspire?”
No answer came but echoes, mocking his desire.
The trees, like sentinels of some forgotten crime,
Stood guard o’er secrets steeped in slow-decaying time.
Through bracken thick with whispers of the drowned and dead,
He trudged, each step a dirge to hopes long forfeited.
The air, a spectral broth, congealed in every breath,
Bore fragrances of rot and roses married death.

At twilight’s bruise-hued brink, he glimpsed a cottage slight,
Its timbers bowed as backs beneath a century’s weight.
Within, no hearth did glow, no voice did stir the dust,
Yet there, upon a table gray with mold and rust,
A letter lay—its seal unbroken, pure as snow—
Addressed in ink that pulsed with veins of long ago.
His name, once carved in hearts now stilled, adorned the page,
A relic from a life now caged in memory’s cage.

With hands that trembled like the last leaf clinging lone,
He broke the waxen rose, its petals long undone.
The script within did coil like ivy round his soul,
Each word a thorn that pierced the flesh to make him whole:

*“My love, the seasons three have wept since thou didst sail,
And yet my vigil burns, unquenched by gale or hail.
The cliffs, our trysting place, now crumble to the foam,
And still I pace their edge, a specter bound to roam.
They call thee lost, but I have seen thy face in mist,
Have heard thy voice in winds that weep where waves are kissed.
Each dusk, I cast my prayers to tides that know no shore,
And thread thy name in shells along this fractured floor.

Last night, a phantom ship did grace the harbor’s mouth—
Its masts like bleached ribs jutting from the ocean’s south.
I swear thy shadow waved from decks where no man stood,
Thy laughter rang in creaks of wood no hand could hold.
The townsfolk murmur spells and hang their charms in fear,
But I shall keep my lamp alight to guide thee here.
Return, my heart’s own north, ere winter snaps my thread,
For time, that thief, has left but ashes in our bed…”*

The page dissolved to motes that fled the cottage gloom,
As winds bore whispers of a dirge beyond the tomb.
The mariner fell prone, his palms pressed to the earth,
And wept for years siphoned by fate’s unfeeling mirth.
Then came the forest’s choir—a thousand rasping throats—
That hissed the truth he’d bartered reason to evade:
The ship that bore him hence had sunk in Neptune’s wrath,
His bones now nested deep in coral’s cyan path.

The cottage, letter, woods—all phantoms of the deep—
Were mirrors to the soul that grief had sworn to keep.
The love he’d clasped in dreams, her voice, her mortal frame,
Had long been claimed by soil, yet burned in deathless flame.
He rose, a wraith unbound from chains of mortal breath,
And strode into the mist where sea and forest met.
The trees dissolved to brine, the earth to liquid night,
As stars, like distant sails, drank slowly his last light.

Now legends tell of shores where specters pace the foam,
Of letters never sent that find their way back home.
But in the forest drowned where moonlight dares not tread,
Two shadows dance entwined—the living and the dead.
Their whispers ride the tides that kiss the world’s cold rim,
A hymn of love outsoaring time’s requiem.
Yet mortals, heedless, call such tales the raven’s lore,
And never glimpse the hands that knock on death’s dim door.