V41: Gone Only From Our Sight

I am standing on the seashore.
Suddenly a ship at my side
spreads her white sails to
the morning breeze,
and starts out for the blue ocean.
She is an object of
beauty and strength,
And I stand and watch her
until at length she is only
a ribbon of white cloud
just above where the sea and sky
mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says:
“There! She’s gone!”

Gone where?
From my sight-that is all.
She is just as large in
mast and hull and spar
as she was when she left my side,
and just as able to bear
her load of living
freight to the place of destination.
Her diminished size
is in me, not in her,
and just at the moment when
someone at my side says:
“There, she’s gone!”
there are other voices ready
to take the glad shout,
“there! She comes!”

And that is dying.