My death arrived in a tidal wave
The winter waters rushed and thrashed
Their grasping hands, and when they crashed
Against me the sea hissed and called my name
Pulled me under to the far beneath
A place of breathless sleep, surrounded
In a silence undulating
Around me, the crew screamed
To predators less merciful than my captors
To the bottom depths I sank
So below that bottom became top
And up was down, and I was no longer drowned
But something else
When those from the dark, down under
Found my body floating lone
Their chains wrapped my hands, bound my ankles
Kept my screams locked in a shell
Yet I breathed through curse of gills
Their hands soon slithered across my flesh
Creatures of curiosity and appetite
Testing the pressure of my contents
Their teeth sank in, sickly swift
And there I was rent, spent
As a mast snapped to drift
Shortly after, She arrived, her orbs full and brooding
Numerous and simultaneous, glowing
Setting the bloodied water alight
Then her hands slid across me
Over the holes, gashes and hollows
Caressing a body starved of mercy
Her song arrived in every pore and tear
A melodious healing stream, a voice
Like love sacrificial and sincere
And so I arrived in an ocean wave
Thrust out from the wrathful waters
All healed, none to decay, and still gasping
Out from death itself, still reaching
To the shore just outside Her domain
And from there I crawled to breathe
A neophyte bound to Her name
