Tides

The tide raises us like boats and we are held up by the surface of the water, buoyed up beneath the majesty of the night sky and all its lights.

There, the boats are above everything and the moonlight shimmers on their sails. And the water shows the reflection of the endless darkness and turns it to light that sweeps and shimmers across the waves.

And the moon and the stars loom so large and so close and the waves roll away to the star-lit horizon such that we might imagine that we could ride them away into the sky.

This is the ocean and the night and the tide that raises us. This is the moon and the stars that light our way. This is the swelling of the ocean before it ebbs away.

Sunlight dawns on weary sails, no longer shining in the moonlight. Boats shift and rock upon the morning water, no longer raised up against the sky.

A gull caws and a rope is thrown. A mop slides across the deck. An anchor is hauled and the wind whips through the sails, filling them with hope.

The sky is blue and filled with wispy clouds that drift like fleeting memories. The captain stands at the bow and watches the sun rise.

The sunlight spreads across the water.