She took another life last night,
my goddess, the ocean.
I stood out on the sands watching the search lights cover the water
Maybe a shark, I thought.
The rip was too calm to have taken him out of the bay so fast.
Yea, maybe a shark.
Someone asked me what had happened.
I looked at the scene and looked back at them. I resisted saying it was a lost dog.
Then I saw his friend.
Sat on a surfboard, the police with dimmed torch lights on his face, asking him questions.
I moved a little closer. Saw his eyes. The confusion, the uncertainty, the disbelief.
Life.
No one expected it to be taken away from us.
And worse.
Taken away from our friends.
That hurt more.
The air thudded as the metal bird flew closer
Lights scanned across the beach and for a moment we lit up
Like a scene from some tragedy,
Always the voyeurs and the vampires in the wings.
The shadow self
Beating a parallel tale
To the story of our lives.
Our heart beats
That so soon to stop
Unexpectedly
And be dragged away
Under the water
By her servants, and soldiers,
Her angels and devils of the deep
Sharks and those fish with jet black eyes
Death, so hollow,
So fearful
So abhorrent, it is everything we are not.
She took another life last night,
My goddess, the ocean.
A sacrifice so that we all might live to worship her another day.
He was 29 years old. Made just a small paragraph in the news.
No one very much knew
That he was gone at all.
He left a bicycle, a surfboard and a friend
who would always remember
That moment on a beach somewhere,
in some unfamiliar country, in some unfamiliar time, in some unfamiliar life
When he woke up to a moment
And how much
that moment really hurt.