Vigil Lights

One, waiting at the outpost prison on the shore, Two, atop the soundless ship across the bay and nearly to the open sea, both still in sight and bound as one to the relentless motherland of Spain. On the deck, a priest walks restlessly, his hope compliant to a fading God-- and by his blood, compliant to the state-- absolves, and bends to royal will... and then the pillowed sail is made to spill the wind, and everything is still. The messenger is at the signal light. Was it a grace to lift the prisoner inside his head, the spirit doppelganger raging? "Will it never let me go?... In nomine.....no, I may never bless a death like this!" His cassock, collar, torn away to strike the shrouded sea the naked cleric shrieks renunciation of his vows, and of his breath, and of his soul. And as he also disappears into the depth, the fabric of eternity, for him once whole, is rent into a thousand threads; the chant of "Dies Irae, Dies Illa" and a thousand echos do not die, but in the darkness, swell forever far beneath the waves. ~