Velella

By-the-wind sailor
arrives on a stone shore,
blown by zigzag zephyrs,
riding crest and trough
to a midnight where the sun,
stunned by summer,
waits in its dying.

Colonies of cells,
small blue tents in motion
across an oceans, following
the destiny of gusts to beach
in wracked inlets,
to be wrecked beneath
unharboured cliffs.

Small wonder
that the seasons fade or
swell surges and then lies still,
in the shallows and in its foam,
aggregated life, time and hope
cast adrift to find the shingle’s rest
and the shell sand’s welcome.

We are lost among the tides,
you and I, accumulated flesh
moved by stars and planets
while the wind whispers
its directions to us
and we follow
in the mercy of the flood.

© BH, 2023

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The name, I’d heard before. Such an evocation of random migration over great distance.

I heard they wash up on shores in their thousands.

A bit like ourselves.