Merciful Parting: Before Dawn’s Early Light
The waking dream was only a dream
Until the weight of armor, the scratch of wool
Impressed reality upon her slumber;
The familiar became reborn,
Time became a number – an hour
Too late to be early for all to become what is:
Reluctantly, the arms of Morpheus released her into his.
Best this way, a mercy killing,
Better than the slow death
Of watching a vessel do what no man on foot can do:
Meet the horizon, touch the sun,
Because the games of adventure and profit and war
Are forever meant to be won.
Always it seems he has just come home;
The same embrace that greets her leaves her alone.
Now again,
“Farewell and Adieu,” like the old sailors’ song;
The good-byes seem as brief as the separations are long.
It starts soon enough,
In fact with the sound of the door:
Closing, it opens her heart all the more
In discharge of spirit, psychic with love,
Which transports her heart on wings of a dove.
To the ends of the earth, to the depths of the sea,
Into cockpits, through storms, she is able to see.
No talisman of luck, no patron saint above
Could protect her lover more than the bare arms of her love.
Even the hundreds of stone maidens facing sea from every port,
Still waiting for their own lovers to return from la mort,
Come to life just enough to share her passion’s reach
And find hope in long waves returning to the beach.
And in a moment off duty when his ship seems just a boat,
He’ll taste as sea spray the tears still on his coat;
And the caress of the wind will be a flutter of hair;
The kiss of the moonlight will be more than he can bear.
– Mary Jo Magar –