Shadow Dance
Poetry by Gill Schwartz

NIGHT SEA JOURNEY

The Dark Night comes and shatters
through the thin glaze of things.
Wounded, blinded by these shards,
I turn within to seek, here, on the Inner Sea,
the goal I have no means to find,
but for the guiding need in my soul.

Setting sail on the Night's Dark wind,
despaired, and pain wasted,
I cast loose all ties to the known,
and enter the towering waves, and
give myself to the foreboding sky.

Currents well up, grab at my boat,
fling it round as if rudderless,
and sweep me out to the deeps,
to the no man fathomed deeps.

The shoreline's hills and trees dissolve
like day's memories while sinking into sleep.
In the core of my being I cry out,
"Oh, Lord, let not these waters overcome me,
let me not die before reaching my Goal."

Down into the Sea like black marble
out across the waves without end,
I seek for a sign of the way I'm to go
across the horizon bound sky.
Yet, I am but a shadow who seeks
in the closed cupped hands of Night and Sea
where there are no ways
and nothing to know but the going.

The waves and wind torment the tides of my need.
Helpless, enraged, I lash the meager sail
first one way then another, tacking back and forth
across the rush as if to master the winds.
As if my intent has any meaning and my will
is any ballast for this small and lonely bark.

Weary beyond all bounds,
I watch, wafting overhead, seabirds
moved by this Dark Wind as I am.
Ghost-white wings outstretched,
caressed by the unseen gusts and
carried across this fathomless Sea,
a mere twist of their pinfeathers to soar,
borne to their awaiting destinies.

The full moon's iced intensity etches
all this into my upturned eyes.
It's rays glory from their effortless flight,
pierce down into my dread-cleansed being.

In a heartbeat, I understand and surrender.
Released, I turn to tie the sail
to catch the wind full behind,
and abandon myself to it as the seagulls do.

 

 

 

Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2003   www.WisdomVisions.com