Stone Altar Against The Sea Poem by Daniel Brick

Laud the gods,
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our blest altars.
Shakespeare's Cymbeline

Some demon must have willed it, a beast
our prayers and sacrifices cannot reach.
In the unexpected fall of night, even in
day's fullness, we warriors all, blinded
and unready, gripped rope or rail, sail
or rough plank, but still our sturdy ship
crashed on hidden rocks. The bottom was rent,
collapsed like kindling in a blaze. We the twelve
upright turned to help the twelve prostrate ones.
Broken bones, deep gashes, severed limbs,
but not a sound of pain or grief. We saw
their souls enter the stream of the gods'
own river high above us. Even demon darkness
could not occlude that vision.
We plunged
from our beloved ship into the black tar
water, and trudged heavily to the rocky
beach, surf pounding far beyond us. Oh, the doom
that surf proclaimed! We stood in a crooked line,
staring out at those immense waves which were
now our jailers.
I no longer gave commands. We all
knew what had to be done. We worked slowly, steadily.
This had to be done right the first time, or the waves
would drown our chances, then our lives. We spoke
little, our prayers were best intoned in the soul's
cavern. But our prophet, Hanrun, sang THE LAY OF MERCER
in his high, sweet voice. We salvaged weapons, food
and clothing. My young cousin rescued the six BOOKS
OF THE LAWS. We all cheered and applauded him, but
I worried, Has the judgment of the gods fallen on us?
Is the dark prophecy of my youth being fulfilled,
even pulling my eleven brave companions into its
bleak unfolding? In my vision, on my first hunt,
I saw a star blaze with black fire, and turn
the sky into ashes, and then we choked on the stench
of black air. But everyone survived. Everyone.
And our joy is a new kind of strength we summon
at every spring festival. So perhaps even this
catastrophe the gods needed to right some huge flaw
in space, and having done so, they may be willing
to do us good in return.
We perform our final task
in an expectant silence. We heave red-splotched gray
rocks, moss-covered granite, panels of slate, dull
shining mica sheets. We bring all these heavy
offerings to Hanrun, who tells us how to pile them
to make a vast altar along the beach. A fire glows,
a fire grows, a fire blazes. We stand around the altar,
pounding our shields with swords and spears. We recite
prayers sacred to our tribe, and move around the altar,
following the sun's path across the sky. Our prophet stands
nearest the hot blaze. His eyes are shut and his lips
mouth a silent appeal... By dawn the altar fire smolders,
and the darkness is pierced by sunshafts. We gather
our belongings, and begin our trek inland, to find
a new home....