The Ship

This leviathan of welded steel slips through the bays narrow mouth towards open sea. Deep within its hull a shuddering pulse powers a purpose. Set course and slave to schedules, stacked containers cling like gorging ticks to ride its way. Such power shackled to the shortest route between two ports. I have come to imagine it a metaphor for some living thing, to harbour a desire to let it loose and carry a weary soul towards visions seen only in exalted states. There have been days when I have clung to it as it departs the port and in my mind cut all ties to ride the shoulders of southern ocean swells. Coded within us there seems a longing that links us to the sea. Far from land those structures holding who we are give way and what was certain dissolves into doubt. The world tips balanced on a bubble, whilst in the depths something stirs, unkowable, formless, utterly dangerous.