Silent Anchorage – a Lonely Shipwreck

Forlorn she lies– alone but for bedraggled spirit of helmsman eternally clutching fast to rotting wheel, and ghosts of able-bodied crewmen drifting unseen across ancient deck planks now claimed by urchin and prawn. Upon her bed of ancient sand in silent darkness hence besieged by clutching barnacles and starfish with bonds of rueful memory bears she of daunting breaker, of ravaging gale, yea of merciless night without moon dared she ply an angry ocean darking and fearsome.  Sails became naught but billows of trepidation lashed onto masts of terror broken by courage abandoned in blackness of merciless winds come screaming on a night of terror and loss.  A sorrowful midnight of lightning did shew once a hellscape painted with black mountains of brine sent to rest her here, now rests she. 

No more laden of goods bound for ports afar, nor resourced with wherewithal to challenge that dark foe aweather, nor rests upon her further need.  The darkness and serenity concerns not with cargo for a distant port sought.  Merchants in harbors of yesterday grieved their loss.  Mothers that time ago grieved lost sons, bones forever bound in bucklers and lanyards, no more to carry smiles and embraces proudly down the fresh painted gangplank, alas, no more lamp lit nights spent in breathless stories of adventure in mysterious lands abroad.

Deep is the sand where feathers of rust claim fittings of iron in endless dark, silent the pulleys that once sang comforting melody to captain and crew.  Sea birds no longer watch from rail and crossarm for minnow or scrap of doughcake, nor do soar through unblemished marine sky with endless song of cheerful seabreeze and sunlight, no, forsooth; her fate became to languish henceforth and evermore among melancholy recollections and brooding creatures of profound darkness. Whether the sun smiles upon the world above or a fresh tempest sweeps new breakers across the sea, she no longer gives thought.  Her mission is never to be fulfilled, unless it be that of accompaniment to other hapless vessels laden with lost cargo and unfortunate souls who have in their turn found the briny path to that oblivion where resides a mysterious existence of odd fish and quiet damnation.

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