Night Out

by Joyjit Sengupta
(Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India)

It was a logwood
Burning through the night
Giving warmth
And lighting up
Three people’s lives

They were five men in all
Two were washed out in the sea
Three had made it back to safety

What made one wave
Pull two men in
Another throw three men
To currents that ran them ashore
No one knows

It’s hard to tell
Whether it was
chance or destiny

They were silent
Their silence spoke
About their sorrow and grief

A state of mourning
A sense of total loss

Sometimes words can have
Little use or any meaning
When our emotions overwhelm
Stilling our minds
And freezing all thoughts
Our hearts just somehow
keep beating on

Night turned to day
Still there were sparks of fire
In the logwood left
It was time to leave
The ghastly night behind

The logwood had shared
One Night of their lives
And burnt itself to ashes
Giving them its warmth
And the light
to show them the way

With terror and fear
They walked back
to the shore
With tiny flowers
plucked from the shrubs
To pay their last respects

A fishing boat was fast
Coming ashore
And they couldn’t believe
In it were three men
One was the boatman
The other two were men
Who had spent a night out at the sea