Sail of Stone

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In the harbor the ebb had put the boats ashore. They lay crooked, stems pointing at the steps in the wall.

Pointing at him.

He saw the bellies of the boats shining in the twilight. The sun was curving behind the cape to the west. The gulls cried under a low sky; the light thickened into darkness. The birds were pushed toward the surface of the water by the sky, which was stretched like a sail over the horizon.

Everything was pushed toward the sea. Pushed toward the sea, pushed down under the surface, pushed…

Jesus, he thought.

Jesus save my soul! Jesus save my soul.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

He heard sounds behind him, footsteps on stone on the path back to the church, which seemed to be carved out of the mountain, pounded out of stone by a hammer, like everything else here under the sail of the sky. He looked up again. The sky had the same tint of stone as everything else around him. A sail of stone. Everything was stone. The sea was stone.

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