never look back

‘Never look back’ said Orpheus as the shoreline disappeared.   Our ship sailed forward through pillars of salt.  Eternal cries from the underworld were about us, the bleating of lambs sang in and out of darkness.  Haunting cries like refugee shadows that have lost their native land, drifting shadows that wander in the depths of their own despair.  They cry like Sisyphus, like Tantalus; chin deep in clear water, with an unquenchable burning thirst.   I look to the moon, it bears within it the scars of ages, it folds itself like origami, and curls out of shapes and shadows as though it dances in its own drunken madness.     I have, at times, found solace in the refuge of the woods, in the serenity of the meadows, but refused to compromise myself to land.  The sea is my skin; it envelops me with its salty hand.  The world makes more sense from the breadth of the ocean.  The ocean has amnesia, the ocean forgets, it leaves no trace, no footprints of the past.  Some go to the sea to lose themselves, but I go to find myself.  The night sky is never as clear as when it shines above you and the sea rests beneath you like a diamond-speckled carpet.  I’ve grasped the fallen stars that fell into my lap in the wintry nights that were too frigid for them to stick to the ethereal sky, and I sifted them out like sand within my pale hands.  I’ve contemplated their elusive beauty and pondered about the secrets of the universe encapsulated within them.  I carefully followed Jupiter as it lay low in the eastern sky, speaking with its omnipotent glow.   I remember the eloquent words of the captain; and recorded them in my mind as though I were a scribe feverishly translating some ancient, esoteric language.  The sun rose above the sea and Orpheus’s’ songs seemed to greet the birth of day.  The captain said, “Every sunrise offers a new beginning, a chance to be born again.”  The sun teased us with its fickle rays of warmth.  The music of his voice and the poetry of his thoughts perpetuate, like a chord that resonates, like a tone that vibrates on an everlasting wave.  I’ve seen the folk and their desperation and I’ve tasted the bitter bread of their despair.  I’ve sailed in open oceans and breathed the salty air, and timelessness abounds within space and within sound, as though it were a traveler somehow lost but also found.  As we sailed into the mystic, we drifted in the sphere of sirens, and barely scathed their enchanting invitations to eternal sweet slumbers.  Their song was sweet like Orpheus’ song, the captain steered us away and said, never look back, at least not today.