He has seen much
Throughout the day and most of the night,
Watched the sky split open, rent asunder
By the sound of canon fire.
He had read the Book of Revelation
That morning, while waiting for Armageddon.
He had a moment of epiphany
The night before, keeping watch alone
Looking at a streak of light, a white fleck
The boy on the burning deck.
He has seen carnage
Deathly portents flashing before his eyes
Grown men reduced to incoherent idiots
Frightened beyond words, staring at darkness
Their faces convulsed in circles of pain.
He is a stowaway, a witness to a new dawn
A nascent historian, entering a new world
As the old one slowly fades.
Around him is fire and smouldering smoke
Even as he writes in the notebook,
The boy on the burning deck.
There is no land in sight
Just a stretch of endless sea.
An albatross flies overhead, calm and silent
Propelled by its mighty wings, gliding
In the azure blue sky of that morning.
The boy watches, the crystals in his pocket
Jangling as they nestle with each other.
He remembers his mother’s rosary, her closed eyes
A sick child at death’s door, being revived
By the perpetual chimes of an ancient clock
The rejuvenated cries
Of the boy on the burning deck.
