Lost voyages

 It seemed that salt sprays from the gulf of Lune to Belfalas had weathered my limbs as I tarried by the havens at Mithlond. Leaning upon the broken edifices I squinted across these brazen waves.
 There were no gulls any more.

 Inside the tavern the fiddler is a blur of elbows and tapping feet, the sound of thumping tankards and slosh of ale. The warm of humanity pervades me like the familiar glow from a hearth. Running my hand over the rough-grained wood of  tables polished by the grease of countless meals.
 Someone hollers for another round - burdens made light as light fails outside.

 Who shall refill the cup for me?

Drifting to my favoured shadowy nook, out of the way. Watching the merry folk traipsing by. The deep-throated chuckle of hefty men back from the hard fields, the swing of a shire-wench's skirts, the quiet enjoyment of a crew resting from a voyage. Whither?
 The South they say, beyond Harad and Khand and East thence.

 I turn away. They speak of what I have seen.

 Outside again, and the hearth-fires twinkle from the dusk-cloaked hillsides eastwards. Like portholes of some mighty argosy to take me hence forthwith. To the white shores that call me unceasingly, beyond the setting Sun and sickle Moon, hope and despair. Driving me to unheeded rapture when the wind tears at my wayward thoughts, when the sun blazes it's ascetic's incal upon my bared forehead in a last gesture of commiseration.
 Baring my teeth in a mirthless grin. My motley crew seems happy here, a whiff of peace from the snarling waves or the deathly stillness of a sea becalmed.
 Striding down the wooden jetty, thinking of the graceful harbour that I once knew. Hearing snatches from conversations ages ago, with those that had now passed beyond my ken. Swift glimmers of that free laughter (so free, so free!) sparkling like wine under a youthful sun. Living my days out on echoes from the past. While the voices of the living fade to oblivion.

 I am about to cast off the moorings when my ship's mate intones softly, gazing like me into the West.
 "Arwen vanimelda, namarie."
 There's a gentle query at the end that is not missed by either.
 My Arwen passed into the West years ago.
 And all Eowyns thereafter were pale shades of what was, and never will be.

 I can now feel the swell beneath the plunging prow as we head out West, one last time. Bows pointed straight into the gloaming, to forgotten paths east of the Sun, West of the Moon. The voyage for the sake of itself, what lies there forgotten in the thrill of the salt, wind and waves.