The eagle’s shadow passes, and I lift my eyes. Up there in cloudless heaven, he circles me, a darkness, some blurry shape, floating in the beautiful blue canopy overhead. It is not my time, I think to myself. It cannot be my time. The precipitous bird, as though hearing my thoughts, takes one last loop and sails away, leaving me to the lonely desert and the empty sky. I sigh, feeling anew the absence of friends and enemies alike; even death will not stay to tea. A wind, hot and full of sand, bites at my exposed face. A slothful arm rises to shield eyes already smitten, and I blink and cry into my dirty sleave.
Stumbling back toward my camp, I fall into a sun-bleached chair, there waiting for my vision to clear. The canvas flutters in the breeze, the sound awakening memories of ships and sails and—how my heart longs again to behold—the ocean, the deep, blue sea, cold, morning mists, salt air, and the seagull’s matin cry. A dream for a blind man, an old man, trapped in nostalgia. Alright, then, “Respite, respite and nepenthe,” as the poet says.
I stand and wipe the tears from my eyes, casting my gaze out over the alien land of my long seclusion, the empty place of my exile, my lonely desert. It almost seems my vision’s clearer now that I’ve had a good cry. The sky is bluer, somehow, more shocking to behold, and my heart feels glad.
Tale Told 