A Letter to My Friends [Part 3] (Or "The Sea, The Wilderness and the Harbor")
Updated: Jan 27, 2020
[part 3]
It took a fire.
A force beyond my fear of the sea
To wake me to the sea.
And so we went
With what children remained
And walked to the that little dock
That cradled a little boat
Not much bigger than the
One I set sail on so
Many years ago.
I did not call or write
To tell you I was coming,
Because after all these years,
What would it matter?
The sea was calling
But not just the sea was calling.
It was that which was on the other
side of the sea,
that was calling.
It was you that were calling.
Calling me.
When I had decided
That it would be best not to
Call. Yet your whisper lived
On in my heart. It was
You whose hook, forever planted in my
jaw, began to
Reel me from my comfy home.
To that deep and hellish space
Where we must face
What we’ve lost
What we’ve forgotten
And what must be redeemed.
And so I sailed again.
With my tiny crew. To you.
By utter faith.
That you might
At least
Welcome me home to your harbor.
With an unsure hug
And perhaps some noble memory
of who we were
Once as friends.
And maybe walk again
As brothers
Led this time, by Another,
Though wiser, and greyer, and kinder.
Part One of this poem can be found here. Part Two of this poem can be found here. This poem in its entirety can be found in Where the Wind Comes From: Poems by Mark T. Whitten