everywhere the stuff of life crying out to be seen to be cherished freedom ever a possibility to be brave in defence of what he knew and loved so that when the coldness would come he would find her beauty and joy there too Hiding safe in the dark He would trace The outline Of far off Islands Conjured In his imagination and Peopled with wonderful creatures One day He would have to see them or Perish In the trying the exquisite connection took him to places he had known Contemplated Resisted And Caliban-cried “to dream again” he conjured the Tempest torn face of Miranda from the darkened clouds she flickered Stormlike and Challenging He longed for a place To lie Exhausted in a dreamlike harbour Where life Holds tight and Temporarily safe Where La petite mort And Mortality Collide And his being ached to hear the life affirming cry of the seagull There had been good times when the light and wind had blessed him its warmth would eat softly through his soul fusing him with every living thing She had always known about the journey and how it would be. She could not recall when it had started but what she did know was every fine detail of how it would be. Each one was laid out before her and she could scrutinise them in any given moment. She had been fortunate in life. She was gifted with beauty in so many ways. It was a beauty which would turn heads male and female. Yet it was a beauty which drew no envy. Each one who saw it was gifted with a gentle and sure joy. In turn, for these last weeks, her failing body had extracted from life every drop of physical mundane joy that it was capable of. Now as they laid her on the makeshift bed in the cabin, it was time to go within. The intention of those on the ship was to rescue her from the inevitable. But she knew it was the very vehicle to deliver her into what she had always known would come to be.
