So close and yet so far away

I sailed on under just a headsa'l, the southerly building throughout the day, until I'd turned the corner and could take shelter on the windward shore.

I was back in the company of the familiar.

So near, yet so far away. The world stood there, almost lost in the wind. Paul's second letter to the Ephesians speaks out; "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

Peace beyond all understanding. Fresh over salt. The old fellas could drink here for ever. But; "Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water (Jeremiah 17:13)".

The colony, civilization, ordered, specialized and disciplined, it sails on oblivious of its fate, till eventually it founders, beached on a billion particles of glass. It preserves its order till the last, but in the increasing heat it is inevitably dying one by one, cell by cell.