Fathomless Whisper

The winds are what call at first; those sweet zephyrs that whisper secrets of fragrant, far flung places. Then comes the curling lap of poetry, soft and beckoning upon the varnished wood. Tickling and receding in a tease. And who could resist such words? None whose languishing eyes have sought that ever shifting horizon, the blue of which so often blushes wild pink at twilight before it flushes full rose purple, and divests its colors into bare, flickering stars.

So the sails let down their canvas and the bow kisses the slow, ambling waters in gentle repetition, angling with fervor towards the deeper and wider expanse of waiting sea.

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This pull, this gravity that swells, asking all the more for trespass, licks at starboard and port, begging demands that wash warm over the oaken skin of ship. The converse grows with crested billows, their caress heightening as the wind tugs seemingly desperate at the sails, raking the canvas to urge the journey onwards. Plying the craving, curvaceous blue with deft and determined grace, the vessel sweeps toward that inviting swell which offers passage where neither star nor compass deign to direct. Sails full with the wind's exhale it stands for an interval, poised drunken upon a quivering peak until reckless yearning bears it swift into a shattering breach. Oak groans against the heady splash, melding with ocean's wine dark harmony that lilts to keening on the ragged gusts.

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Rolling steep from wave to wave, the prow steers true and gives wanton chase, keeping time with the song straining in the breast of the deep. A growing tumult and churn as errant breeze tangles fast in the rigging, the throaty creaking of the hull joining the shuddering rush of ocean's dark breath.

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Here is all storm and undulation, all shaking as upsurge whirls about the vessel importuning it to drown, while ship unrelenting carves its path. Water, air and earth form fire. The roiling cadence halts with a harrowing crash, falling over the boundaries of what nature deems proper, and seeps across the deck beneath the moon's pale voyeurism. Salt and mist glitter in the calming ebb, receding concentrically in pained ardor with a wish to ever remain solely as this. A regard of fondness in the wavering surface reflects back the image of tall masted majesty. 

Currents wind their promises, singing softly as they wend back to shore, yet bittersweet as this tender hold must release. But weathered wood understands, quietly moaning its longing to return, and dips with solemnity to kiss the curving eddies as it retreats to harbor.

Tis only for a time, a meager breath until adventure stretches out again upon that gilded horizon,
arrayed but in a mere mirror of wheeling newborn stars. 

The voyage always begins with a whisper, not the ploy and wiles of saucy siren who merely plays and tosses a flippant tail, but the urging, longing roll of sea whose vow is fathoms and fathoms and fathoms deep.