VELA

Vela lies waiting, half-discarded – all slack and rough-heaped, dormant on the deck before, with a heave on the halyard, it lurches into life. Hauled up the mast, the now alert sail fills itself, snapping to a flamboyant attention. Taut, puffed up, arcing against the air. Yet figures below, craning up in wonder, are too far away to see the sheeting tremble – its fibers thrumming to the voyage. Too far to see infinite little zephyrs and ocean mist-sheen making whispered striations. Too far to see the rivulets of sunlight, dashing over its surface, as the ship races on.