The Tempest’s Veiled Embrace
A figure stands, her shadow steeped in dread—
A widow’s shawl, salt-laced and frayed by years,
Clings to her form, a shroud of unshed tears.
The ocean roars, its maw of froth and spite,
Devours the dusk, engulfs the frail moonlight.
Her name? Long lost to whispers of the foam,
Yet sorrow carves its epitaph in loam.
Three turns of moon since hope’s last vessel sank,
When waves did claim the *Marianne’s* dank plank,
And he, whose voice once gentled tempests’ ire,
Now sleeps where kelp and coral weave his pyre.
She treads the ledge where brine and anguish meet,
Her heart a compass skewed, devoid of heat.
“O cruel Poseidon!” (Though she dares not plead),
“What justice dwells where love’s drowned men must bleed?”
But lo! Through veils of spray and twilight’s gauze,
A specter glides—no mortal flesh, nor cause—
Its form, a shimmer ‘twixt the real and dreamed,
A silvered ghost from realms unredeemed.
“What wraith,” she cries, “dares mock my burdened sight?”
Yet steps she closer, drawn by phantom light.
The figure turns—her breath, a stuttered hymn—
*His* eyes, though dimmed, still pierce the ocean’s rim.
“Belov’d!” she gasps, the wind steals half the word,
“Art come to chide this heart that hope deferred?”
The specter smiles, a sad and crooked grace,
And lifts a hand to brush her wind-chapped face.
*No touch*—yet warmth blooms where his shadow falls,
A memory’s balm against the squall’s cold walls.
“I dwell,” he murmurs, voice like tides withdrawn,
“Where dreams are shores your waking treads upon.”
“Then take me there!” she pleads, her soul laid bare,
“To lands beyond this rack of salt and air!”
He shakes his head; his form begins to fade,
“The veil, once rent, admits no mortal aid.
But mark, dear heart—when dawn’s first blush appears,
Seek not my face in tempest’s spiteful jeers.
The lighthouse lamp you tended in our youth
Still burns—its flame outshines Oblivion’s truth.”
She grasps at mist. The sea, in ravenous zeal,
Sends forth a wave to seal the phantom’s deal.
Her foot slips—stones give way beneath her tread—
The world upends. The stars invert their bed.
Down, down she spirals, ‘neath the brine’s dark choir,
Her lungs aflame, her thoughts a fading fire.
Yet as she sinks, strange peace pervades her breast:
The ghostly arms encircle her, caressed
By currents soft as vows exchanged at dusk.
“At last,” she sighs, “no more the crushing husk
Of days without your laughter’s golden thread—”
Her lips stilled by the ocean’s verdant bed.
Above, the storm relents. False dawn breaks pale
On cliffs now empty, save the widows’ tale.
The lighthouse beam still sweeps its futile arc
O’er waves that hold what time cannot remark—
Two souls entwined where dream and death conspire,
Bound not by flesh, but by quenchless desire.
Thus ends the dirge the seagulls keen at morn:
*Of love that outlives breath, though hearts are torn.*
