Sanity Break: Sestina

I've been doing some research since the last post, on other disappearances and general treatment of observers as well as other things currently happening in various fisheries. I'm frankly horrified, and having some trouble organizing my thoughts well enough to write a coherent post about it.

So I walk away for a while, and work on some poetry instead. The piece below is a sestina (which is an extremely complex poetry form) that is and is not about Keith's disappearance. Which is to say that it was inspired by this tragedy, as well as a couple others that have happened in the past few years: a boat sinking, and a deckhand who was lost and whose body was never recovered.

Cry of the Banshee

I thought you'd be there when the ship came in to shore

But they came, and you were nowhere to be found.

They told me you'd been taken by the sea

As if she loved you, just as you loved her.

I knew in my heart, when I heard the wail on the wind

Of the banshee, a hag screaming in the darkness.

So now you will dwell in perpetual darkness

And I will walk forever on the shore

And when at night I hear a cry on the wind

I'll know that yet another will not be found.

For everyone who sets sail upon her

Knows that they may not return from sea.

I could wish you'd never gone away to sea

Only to be swept away, down into deep darkness

But your love was always first for her

And she does not free all to walk again on shore.

Though some will be, some will not be found

And ever the banshee cries upon the wind.

The voice of nightmare carries on the wind

Cries out of those lost in the dark places of the sea

For she is hungry, and they will not be found

But by the lantern-fish, and those who live in darkness.

No tale of you, no song will reach the shore;

She called you like a lover and now you lie with her.

And so you will transform, become a part of her

As was foretold when I heard wailing on the wind.

She screamed your name upon a midnight shore

And I knew that you were lost forever to the sea.

I thought that I might drown in my own darkness

And that perhaps I never would be found.

If it should ever come to pass that you are found

I'll go down to the water and I'll thank her

For not keeping you forever locked in darkness.

I've come to fear the cry heard on the wind

When anyone I love goes out to sea;

Still I will listen as I walk upon the shore.

Down in the darkness and far from the shore,

Where never the wind nor the light may be found,

Lie those who once loved her, now one with the sea.