none of us were prepared for the five K detour down the entire west coast of Africa, thirteen days of unplanned isolation, dry routines and occasional salt dreams

The hostage taking of Jews on October 7th erupted like a sea volcano, singing us all, forcing a big course change, making us all leery of the sea, worrying our families back home. For me the detour meant no Suez Canal and class field trips in Aqaba and New Delhi.

sleep was an elusive siren as the waves hissed and beat against the ship most nights, self-medicating with breathing and memory exercises, exhaling ego puffs, inhaling salty kisses, giving up hope and wait for  a morning mediation with strangers, a temporary release from the ocean serpents that lurk beneath the waves, mocking me, reminding me of the childhood fears and champions that rode together across the skies, always searching for a new day, then time to leave the others, to wash and rouse my beloved who sleeps well on sea or land

the diversion lasted thirteen days, a bad number, as we abandoned the Suez Canal, moving at knot speed down the African coast, 4,500 miles from the Canaries to the Cape of Good Hope, for a round of white meals amid the vineyards, no blacks in sight beyond those with fingers out looking for a short ride anywhere but where they are

today some of the students came and sat with me during office hours, maybe seven or seven hundred as I’ve seen so many over the years, a few reminding me of so many others, most avowing their readiness to leave school albeit uncertain about what path would bring any certainty about how they would live according to what they learned with me and the others who profess to know a little about something

there is one, maybe two, who ask wordlessly about how to prepare for the next chapter, the one that calls them beyond the given, the ordinary, the expected, the one that terrifies them with wings that will fly them to new lands, to new loves, to cliffs where they pray that the winds will catch and carry them far away, maybe even to a new land where another soul will welcome them with a kiss, a dare

hard to admit the truth that I’m tired of treks to new lands that have only old memories and regrets, where most of the faces are too familiar, looking old, tired, sad, so where are the sirens that called me to this sea, this voyage, this chapter or is this journey just an epilogue, an ellipsis, a failed meditation