Loving and Wrecking: Spring Storm

Running athwart the wind, I was trying to head for harbour, Knowing a light was beckoning there to me.

But the wind had other plans in mind And grew momently fiercer and harder, And the waves towered and beat me back out to sea.

Baffled, but full of hope, I tugged at the sheet, went about, And was almost within that sheltering arm once more.

Then suddenly, everything broke.

The light, it seems, has gone out.

And there are no messages from the shore.

Morning comes, grey and cold.

I should struggle, my bearings to find, But the seas still pile and drive me wherever they will.

I mend the tackle and hold My sail to the dregs of the wind.

I think not of harbour. My spirit lies battered and still.

Inland, the crocuses blow In gardens out of the wind.

Wreckage lies littered — but will be cleared away.

I creep in, numbed and slow, Accepting whatever relief I can find.

What can I bear from the storm into this day?

That I loved, and you drove me away.

Juliet Rees