.:ár { réalta } is gile // Lydia

And nights are full with weeping.
For sins of the past we've sown;
But tomorrow is ours for the keeping,
Tomorrow the future's shown.

(The ocean holds no silence. You dance to it and close your eyes and breathe it in, and you know that fact with absolute certainty.) My feet shift the cool white sand aside as I over the shore, tasting the salt in the air and feeling the dampness of the ocean kiss my skin even here, away from the water. The breeze slips its fingers through the tendrils of my hair, pulling out the grains of sand that are less tightly woven in than others and tossing them back beneath me where they truly belong. This night is more chilled than most have been lately, so I wear a long sleeved, plaid cotton shirt, the buttons icy when I reach up to fiddle with them. It presses up against my skin as I race the waves, leaping a few steps just to feel the split second sensation of free fall, legs spreading out in the air and arms keeping me carefully balanced. (You are a dancer and become insulted when others try to tell you differently only because you dance for the ocean and not an audience in a theater.) Back at home, my many siblings sleep, oblivious to the miracle just outside their window. Choosing mere sleep over the beauty of midnight sea.

(It is there, at the end of the beach. You don't see it - you feel it. Your own pulse beats in time to its light, your flesh can feel its every creak. It is yours and you will always be a part of it.) Seeking fingers of light stretch over the waves, revealing a few jagged points where whitecaps appear. They scramble over every pulse of the tide, their radiance warning off ships, which is ironic because they only lure me in. The white flashes are reflected in my eyes and I smile, dropping suddenly into the sand and running my hands over the smoothness for a moment while watching it stand, the queen of the beach. (You know that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder but you feel so sorry for all who cannot see Her Majesty - she is glorious in her power despite the chipping paint and world worn appearance. She does bear lives on her back, after all.) I remember a time when the lighthouse was slaved over, but now that it can run with out a Keeper... no. No, it cannot run without a Keeper. I am its Keeper, and I do not lack my purpose. But sometimes, late at night when its siren song becomes too tempting, I wonder if I need it just as much as it needs me.

Throwing my head back, I catch the opalescence of the moon, its pearly light pouring over my face and limbs. Closing my eyes, I breath in deeply and savor the cool light. But one cannot resist the temptation of the night sky for too long, and within moments they are open again, searching the stars for the constellations I know are up there. Back before the Dark Days and the Great War, there were sailors. Pirates, some of them, but others were good honest men. Grandfather told me stories about them, about guns that sounded like a cracking whip and flashing swords. He talked about justice and defeat and most of all freedom, longed by for every man with his own ship that bobbed over the glittering ultramarine. He spoke of a thousand shining gold coins spilling out of crumbling chests, of keys and locks and hopes and deaths and treasure. Back then, men did not need the spinning compass - they navigated by the stars.

What I would have done to be among them. Lantern lit decks and singing sailors sounds far better than the darkness I live in now, trapped by those trying to protect me. The lighthouse is all I have left of those times. A place where I can imagine I am awaiting a ship, calling it with my life, and someday it will come to me and take me away to the far seas and islands with pearls and diamonds at my head and my feet, spilling away from me with ever step I take. And then I will never have to worry about how I'm the odd one out in my family, how everyone expects more of me then I can give, how I'm terrified of the water for reasons no one seems to know. I will be free. (It's a dream. A beautiful, wonderful, fantastic dream that you hold close.)

But then I have to wake up. I have to remember that no ship is coming to save me, and I'm stuck in the life I was never meant to live. It's a hard reality, but it's all I have been offered, so I guess I just have to take it and be grateful I'm not living on the streets. Rising again, I brush myself off and am about to keep moving when I hear something, and feel a disturbance in the air. I freeze and blink in surprise, wondering who else would ever want to be out this late, before cautiously calling out, "Hello? Is someone there?"

Lift your eyes and see the glory.
Where the circle of life is drawn;
See the never-ending story,
Come with me to the Gates of Dawn.