The storm clouds have passed over

and the wreckage is strewn about

the now calmer sea

like so much flotsam and jetsam. 

So are the remains of yesterday

and what could have been, 

now debris littering the shoreline

in the wake of a tempest, 

now gone and forgotten by the world,

but not by the ship and its captain.  

Gone is the hull and torn are the sails. 

Broken are the masts

and shattered is the rudder. 

The anchors lay abandoned at the bottom of the ocean,

their chains twisted and tangled. 

But there was no loss of life,

only of that which might have been -

a journey disrupted by violent waves

and terrible gales,

heartless assailants both,

cruel and relentless till their wrath was spent.  

And oh, how that wrath was spent

on that unsuspecting vessel!

Where is the captain,

that noble and fearless man?

He is afraid and clinging for life,

small and powerless against such a force,

for what man can withstand the doling of his lot

once his time has come

and the collector of debts rasps sharply at his door? 

But there is life yet and breath in his lungs. 

Not all is lost. 

No, but only the vessel in which he depended,

which proved quite defenseless and frail against such ferocity. 

So it is with man when he rests his hope

in that which his own hands have made.