All Aboard The Spirit Ship

Good things happen at the docks of loneliness
to those of us who neither pine for paradise nor
something that never was nor never will be.
We just expose the wounds of justice--the aches and
pains that have pushed us to the brink--and wait it out like
stoic sentinels at the gates of unknown palaces.
We become invisible to the causal universe, ignore
the poisoned fruits of the ego, and stand in silence.
Time is the first to fall.
Then the identity we've constructed with anxious knots,
strange nuts, and thought bolts.

With time gone, and the self untied,
the ship docks a quarter to whenever in the
ambiguous nether.
Out comes the hydra-headed entity with eyes ablaze, wielding a trident,
neither smiling nor scowling.
"To Arcadia we shall go," he intones.
"Through the crack in space we sail."

The ship is massive.
Elephantine.
The planks of wood incandescent.
Everything on it seems alive.

You also get the impression that you weren't as
alone as you once thought you were.

Countless spirits board the ship:
dead native warriors;
Those taken by diseases, cancers, the enmity of others,
hypothermia, and lion attacks;
dryads and satyrs;
a horde of djinn;
a procession of goblins;
spirit assassins and spirit lovers;
angels, plump and wiry.
artists and artisans of eons past;
the simply dead.

The embarkation is a festival.
The seas rage and rock;
an aqueous temper tantrum thrown by Neptune.
The goblins drink all the liquor and stink up the place.
The lovers beautify themselves and dance under
the twirling firmament.
Angels play cards.
The dead walk around in various stages of unrest.
The djinn hang out in the shadows, smoking.

The hydra-headed entity intones:
"Arcadia! The western shore!"
The spirits cheer.
The Pure Land at the heart of the world
sparkles on the horizon.

Everyone leaves the ship except for the bodhisattva.
She goes back to the lands controlled by time and
causality.
Her work takes lifetimes.
Some say it will never be done.

Good things happen at the docks of loneliness
to those of us who neither pine for paradise nor
something that never was nor never will be.