Adrift

I’ve been adrift for days now— floating
between the taunting sun and the
tantalizing bright blue sea, trapped
in a mobile prison of rubber.

I send a plea of rain only to receive
drops like hundreds of arrows ambushing me.
I have no refuge from the weeping clouds
above. Droplets, bitter and icy, hit my skin.

 My salty tears blend with remnants
of the turbulent sea. Between my misery 
and the cold rush of rain falling upon me,
the blues I feel and see are the same shade.

My raft is tossed as the ball in a grotesque game of catch.
The waves laugh as I cling for dear life to the slippery
sheen of my craft. Mocking bravery, I raise my head
only to be rewarded with a slap of stinging spray.

 I curse the storm, and the thunder roars back,
rumbling with hunger for me and my tiny raft.
As it rises then plunges, I lose my direction,
pendulating between air and sea.

The waves rise once more and I am utterly engulfed.
My stomach drops to the rhythm of the waves
as I tumble into the depths. My raft is lost and I
kick against nothingness, with nowhere to go. 

My head is a bobbing buoy in the vast darkness,
my gasps are swallowed by the crashing of the waves,
my numb legs fight to keep me above the choppy surface.
The sea is a frigid tomb.

I am lost.

Then I see it a flash of lightning? But it appears,
disappears, then pierces the darkness again.
It’s a lighthouse, barely visible,
but its beams divide the deep black of the sky.

Piercing the endless ocean, its reflection lights
a path of sparking gold that warms me,
if only briefly. Now my eyes blink
back the same light I see ahead.

I know I can’t reach its light, but I am guided,
through the buffeting waves that seemed so fierce.
My hope is not in how I might get there,
but how I keep my eyes on its promise of safe shores ahead.