The boat rises,
not of timber, not of sail,
but of shadow hammered into form,
a prow cleaving the air,
a wave frozen before it breaks.

Figures keep their vigil—
one looking forward,
one turned behind,
guardians of a silence older than speech.
Their chests are hollow,
as if the sea has carved its hunger through them,
as if the wind has taken what once was heart.

The horizon burns thin,
a thread between worlds,
where journeys begin,
where the dead are ferried,
where the living lean to listen.

No oars, no ropes—
only the earth’s tether,
only the sky’s weight.
Yet the vessel waits,
rocking in eternity,
a monument to passage,
to leaving and to return,
to the long memory of water.