A Lament

You were a sail on the horizon, a sliver of white shimmering on a vast glittery backdrop of bluegrey sea and severe sky of india blue. 

In a moment, you were gone.

And now you are the oil rendered morning, rife with frozen flames of orange madness, that will become the wan watercolor white of midday. Sailors of old rhymed through grit teeth of your splendor as a painted w***e who would lure an unsuspecting lad to the thud of a blackjack and subsequent lightening of a pocket; as a harbinger of ill, a banner of the enemy. Sad, I am, that they are wrong, that your gaudy splendor speaks instead of turbulence past. Sad, because we can only measure the depths of the seas beneath us by the height of the waves that might crush us to kindling.

And now I am the harbinger spent, standing in useless awe at the might of a prophecy that neither acknowledges nor requires me, jangling like coins from another economy, shining in naive hope of being spent once again.