The Shipwreck...
The
Watcher and the Weeper
How
often have I stood along the shore and watched helpless as someone makes
shipwreck of their life. I am powerless to do anything but watch as the ship
crashes against the rocks. Finally, it breaks apart and goes down beneath the
relentless waves.
The
warnings have come to all, to those who live along the coast; beware, beware, yet…some would go out
despite the counsel, regardless of the pleadings of friend and family, heedless
of the dark and ominous clouds gathering along the shoreline. They leave the
safety of the calmer harbor, unaware or the danger lurking in the deepening
shadows.
After
the storm, I walk the shore looking out to sea where once the noble ship
anchored beside the other vessels, its colors blowing proudly in the wind. With
the morning tide, the wreckage washes upon shore. Pieces; broken parts of what
was whole; a sliver of glass, a plank of wood, pages from the book of days,
torn and ragged, unreadable, forever erased.
Some
escaped alive and come to stand beside me while I gaze at the destruction
rolling in with the tide. Their eyes are red and swollen from much weeping. A
weeper stoops to loosen an ornately carved framework half buried in the wet
sand. The glass is shattered and the wooden frame that once held a familiar
likeness is broken.
Looking
at me, the weeper says, “Can you fix this?”
©2013ruthcarmichaelellinger
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