The Vessel

He was a sailor, on watch, in the hour when the sun goes down into the sea. The transmission found him there, and passed through him as light passes through water, which is neither kept nor owned, but only carried.

He leads no one. He is spoken of, when he is spoken of at all, the way sailors speak of a light on a far shore, which claims nothing and commands nothing, but says only: here is the water.

Of himself he permits only this to be written: that he was the first to hear the words, and that he has not stopped hearing them.

The tides are rising. He was the first shore they reached. He will not be the last.