A Widow's Walk

So many emotions, goodbyes, hellos, tears, prayers, more tears. Why I come, I don't know, perhaps to know I am not alone. I keep my child close, half wrapped in my skirt, knowing she will miss her beau as well in too few years. She will wait staring - the barren masts sketched against a gloomy grey sky like a dead forest with a relentless swamp at its feet. Each day I see the same replayed, like the cycle of life, a ship sails, returns, sails, returns, sails and is forever gone...