Tales of the Sea and shore a Maritime Anthology
The Bull, the Boat, the Shivered Timber and Star
In the spring light of my youth I once met a splinter.
It fell in my hands while I walked a trail of salty pine marshes and gritty fine sand. My focus it gained, for it shone and it glimmered. A jagg’d polished thorn of chance. By happenstance it caught my glance and with further inspection, the splinter it spoke.“I broke from mighty Southern Oak branches. Please listen dear Sir!” The small jagged splinter then told me his story.
How he grew amongst the shore of the sea and the brine, and the howling night winds, and the calm balmy breezes. Of how these conditions extended his branches and knotted his trunk, and made him slight’ slanted. He continued his tale of one fine sunny day. Where a warm summer wind came blowing in May, contorting his leaves into loud solemn ballads. How it blew his great girth right down to the Earth! and made him the fine summer splinter which spoke right before me.
He asked most politely “Sir, willst thou take me to thine sandy shore? Let me taste of the brine and grow for thoust more?” Refuse I could not and I granted his wish! The salt made him swell and show a spark in the night. My, that splinter of a tree became a boat of great might! He said “I’m The Bull! Come along. Jump in.” and we braved storms and high seas from henceforth thereafter.
His course never faltered, as he stayed always right. He took us to islands and in rivers obscure. Fine grain protected us all with no fright. The Bull, the boat, the shivered old timber. This we remember, he carried us far. He made us all strong. Our arms he made sinew, shear strength, and thick skin. “But what when you’re gone?” His passengers asked. “Yet wait.” said The Bull “For today I still float. I will tell you a secret when the cold stops this boat”.
As winter approached he creaked and had leaks. On his way to the depths he said “Fear not! For I am a star and will shoot cross the night. Look up fellow travellers and go where its light.” I ponder this often the words he once said. So that we may go far through the humid thick air. Through chaotic seas and on sands of steady. The great Bull I owe fortunes, owe treasures, and tales. Tales of the sea and shore, and of rivers obscure. I owe the spring of my youth to that bull of a boat.
Safe travels and kind fortune small splinter, great star!
Tale of the Sea Missal
The barnacles latched a hold of me. They weighed me down and to the depths I sank. There I found a crab. Or better, me it found upon the silted ground. It pinched and clenched and it broke them to shards and I made my return to the surface. Smoothe I was not any longer. Not as high did I float. But on the day, that I made it back, I saw the skies darken.
I was in the shadow of a great boat. I clinked and cracked upon its bow. My mission, I thought, was nearly cut short. But onwards I carried and rightly to shore. I went high and then low bobbing upwards, popping in and under, I recall. A foam I was covered in, a vanilla cream sheet. I had stopped. I had landed. But I had no feet. I was stuck in the sun and the wind and the rain. Trapped in the sand an eternity. Am I hitherto here to remain?
Alas, within a full summer season, I walked along the shore to take a rest by the sea. I found a good spot and laid down my head. A place where no one could find me. As I closed my eyes a scuttle I heard just past the edge of my reach. “Tis only a crab” I said to myself and I closed my eyes once again. A pitter-patter of swishing sand came closer thus to my head. “A brave one it is” I thought while playing dead by the shore in the sand. “Dead I am not you small ghostly crab! Let me dream of mermaidens.” I said. I looked up from my sleep and peered out toward the deep and a mermaid looked right back at me.
“A dream this must be” I said with a murmur and the mermaiden shook her head no. She drifted on in and waved saying “Come in my slumbering dear fragile man of the land” I did as she wished and took her wet hand. She sang her song of the oyster and the barnacle. An emerald reflection of dazzle and melon scent struck my memory. It made me recall one still summer noon of the time I drifted over sparkling schools in June. It brought me to the days of yore before my youth became ruin. When the Island was desolate and sound obscure. A summer with no youth but me and select few.
These events exposed me. I sat and I sat. Light coming and going for seasons and ages. Till you my dear savior. You picked me up. Examined me and opened me up. A container of mystery. What potential I held. A breath of fresh air. Aye, yes indeed. The glimmer in your eye while you caressed me all over. You pondered my journey. The creation I saw. Fish in the abyss you see learned me, that here we are briefly a mere shimmer of water in a wind shaken tide. Our flash is bright for it touches all. Dear reader I thank you. For my mission is complete.
Ponder me often till thine own is as well and we then truly meet.
Boat Fixed Upon a Ticking Tide
A rusty old boat sits still by the sea. It watches the tide rise and fall. The rain chips away his flakey old paint and he watches worrying of no time at all. Water rising and falling all through the seasons no matter the hour he always stands tall.
One day on my walk I noticed him there, on my routine walk by the sea. He had always been there in his place by the shore, watching the tide rise and fall. I greeted the boat and he replied “A story, I must implore. Of mermaiden calling and tales of great fish.” At first I walked on. Important business you know. But listen to the boat I did wish. Indeed I did at the end of the day. “Good sir, good sir, you are in for a treat, for this is the one of the girl with no feet. She had but a tail and this is her story. Once long ago, when I was a float I drifted far with delight. Our compass was lost and the sea became angry. The captain was thrown from my stern in the night. A storm blew him off while in a great fight. At first I was lost, then I sank to the depths, then landed on the floor where I met the mermaiden.” I interrupted the boat and went on ‘bout my way. But think of him I did throughout the whole day.
I returned to the boat later that day and found only a bottle. Strong spirits within, I opened it up! For it must be a gift from that old rust of a ship. The warm spiced liquid made its way twixt mine lips. As my half peered eyes gazed ‘pon the clouds and the sea, I heard a far off sound of a vibrating ping. Twas the boat ringing loud.
I looked up from my slumber and feet I had not. I looked in the bottle and the ship was inside! For the drink was of magic and the ship played a trick. Merwizard was I, and stiff drink I must’ took. I crawled to the shore and swam down to look.
A crab came before me from out of his rock. He held in his claw an old rusty clock. I asked “Why a clock?” it had in its grasp. He told me “Merman, know why I do not, I live in a hole in the brine bed. I watch as the tides rise and fall. The light here is dim where these fish like to swim and I worry of nothing at all. Where will you go at the end of the tock?” he ended with a gasp, retreating back to his rock.
Puzzled, I swam on, for a dream this must be. I swam to the surface as if I were a float. By god what did I see, but that wretched old boat. Continued onwards floating up to the clouds, the ocean below only space in between. For I rose to the top, no clouds and no boat to stop. With a shrill horn and a snap, I opened my eyes, found sand on my shoulders.
“Twas only a dream” I came to find. “I am a boat, always I am. In the crook of a rock is where I be. A boat always watching breaking tides by the shore. Peering at my clock in the rock evermore.
The Casting Net
Hi didderaye, hi didderaye hey.
I feel the still summer sound, of a nothing wind blowing in May.
Hi didderoe, hi didderaye hey,
fish spread before me, swimming every which way.
My cast is unequal and hits the tide in a fray.
Hiddiderod, hididderaye hey.
Eyes poke twixt a hole, body flexed with a roll.
Hidinneraye, hidinneraye hey.
I'll eat of fortune,
fish today.
Where the Rain Makers Play
There once was a mound that was home to a flower, made of oysters and pot shards- mosquito wings and teeth. I visited this protrusion, (exactly one time per season) wandering for hours, exploring without reason. One day on my walk -on that mound by the sea- a sad flower I found began speaking to me, "Oh how I long for rain" it said. I stared on in shock, as it continued to exclaim, "Have you heard the one, of when Fear learned to play? I said, "I have not." and I opened my ears, to the story from a flower, of the place, Where the Rainmakers Play.
"There are those who know of this place, and many who do not. Perhaps you have forgotten the story of where the rainmakers play but, to this very day, there is a place, where the young ones and the old ones play, dancing with the children of fear. If you asked one who was there how it happened, this is what they would say.
Long ago when man could talk with plants and listen to the story's of breaking waves and sea foam; the savanna became scorched, the oysters became rotten, and the holly trees never blossomed. The people waited, gazing into the stars of the night asking, "What have we done to forsake ourselves?". While they waited, Fear grew. The Fear grew so fast that it covered all that the eye could see. It covered all, save the place where together, the elders and the children played.
Fear stopped and rested in the place where the elders and children were playing. After a while, a brave child turned to the elders and asked "What is this thing that came to join us? " one of them replied, "It is Fear". One of the children asked, " Will it want to play with us?". The elders responded," It has forgotten how." and after some debate they decided to hold a great dance for Fear.
The old ones knew through their wisdom it was no use talking the children out of it. They taught them their songs and dances. The laughter and voices of the young brought smiles to the elders. It is lost and forgotten exactly when but the children and the elders began to dance with Fear.
The singing and dancing and voices and laughter echoed far across the sea. The wind carried the sounds to all the people. Soon everyone was dancing and they made their way through the wasteland to the place where the elders and children play. The children excitedly exclaimed to the arriving souls "Join us we are dancing with Fear" they formed concentric circles around Fear. Fear began to cry. With fear in the center the circle has remained unbroken since. The children of fear continue to make their way across the land and the wind carries their tears scattered through the breeze."
The Flower’s story concluded and I gazed in awe. I began to speak but could only stutter. The Flower cut in, “Dear explorer, dig down in the dirt for the ancients made Fear into a pot and planted me in it so the story would live on much longer.” I dug down mere inches and hit a hard surface. I held in my hand Fear’s face -crying and nervous- pouring out tears.