Image borrowed from YahooI heard the sound of voices on the wind again last night; closer than before – louder – but still no word I understood. It howls some nights from the high cliffs, slender palms casting silver shadows upon the beach from a full moon that tears the pitch night to tattered wisps.
And so I wait, upon the dusty fringes of this strange familiar land. The jagged reef that took all hands but me out there beyond my eyes in the churning depths from which I crawled. Each day new flotsam drifts ashore. Each night the sea rubs bare the half-remembered footprints I’d seen between the tides.
These cliffs – so high and bright – no shelter from the ever searching tempest that rifles my pockets for scraps no matter how I bind my arms against its intrusions. What pirate riches do these lands conceal? What hidden treasures lie within my reach and yet beyond my grasp?
From fretful sleep I wake to feel the gnawing – to shake the crawling bodies from my limbs and seek once more a sail upon the veiled horizon; a far-off mission drawing near. But with each passing tide such hope dwindles. No quest to retrieve this castaway soul will ever leave the far-off shore. I will remain, beneath the high cliffs, un-spendable riches at every turn; for my ship was just a life, and its captain no more than a citizen whose reckless course drew him in upon the shoals of misfortune.
Geoff Moore
Posted on his site Dublin Writers
Listed as #98 over on Magpie Tales 43
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