Departures

I watch it slowly leave the river and enter the Bay, its bow parting the calm with an efficient quiet. Another hour and the ship will be cutting through the swells of the open sea. Men in orange overalls lean on railings at the stern looking back over a long wake. I try to imagine what thoughts are washing across their minds. Perhaps it's the menu for that night or the blurred monotony of seeing another foreign port with its cranes and marshalling yards decompose into the fading light. Or more likely the thoughts of love ones waiting for them at home. Seagulls follow them out and spiral over the ship's dissolving churn, dipping down into the water, lifting up again on wings lit by the last rays of a setting sun. There is a sadness to the sight of departing ships - it touches something deep as if calling up the echoes of ancestors saying their last goodbyes to sons and daughters, siblings and the grandchildren they will never meet.