for that which is not there

I sit here looking out on Hallstatt lake as the snow falls like a particulate curtain, draping the mountains in its fabric white, and in the distance – at the very edge of vision, peering out from behind the snow – sits a large and looming ship, weightless like a feather on the waves.

Her two masts jut out like javelins angled in earth, her sails hang modestly from the rigging; her bow – a compass point drawn by some invisible magnetism toward the horizon. A whisper thin plank leads to land where I barely make out men crossing back and forth, loading the vessel with salted pork and loaves of bread - the women standing on shore, waving.

I sit for minutes staring until my eyes turn dry, searching for any sign of movement, waiting with baited breath for the vessel to push off and begin her long and lonely voyage.

And then the snow lets up, and the mountains come into view dusted now in a soft layer of talcum, and I see that there is no ship – just a small island with two trees, the branches fanning out against the backdrop. The plank is a tiny bridge. And the men crossing back and forth do not exist, and the women waving do not exist.

A sigh escapes my lips, and I watch it press against the cold window – it, too, yearning even separate from my body. Only later does it occur to me that I am in the middle of Austria, at the edge of a lake.

And how cruel, how bitterly spiteful to have a ship built for the sea – a thing of such imagined grandness – moored, in mourning, there.