Re-creation

 Adapted from "The Old Man and the Sea"

"This old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the Sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.

Everything about him was old except his eyes. They were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful, undefeated and wise"

 - Broken Promises

In a world of many judges, “intentions” is no currency,

and some things matter more to the books – some things as “popular honesty”.

But when everyone charters the known courses beneath the Sun,

It turns arduous, the belief of the old man of being more than a Salao – done.

 

Once, he fished the seas under bright skies and a dark night,

Through storms and straits where not even Takahaya would dare fight.

His quests would turn to be too vast to follow nobly,

Or his skiff any stronger to sail the seas any peacefully.

 

- The Turn of Events

Broken was he when his promises of bounties failed,

But crushed he became when his cottage’s faith in him bailed.

La Maitre Parfait becomes the dreaded memory,

A nemesis, a reflection of ego and the failing arm of man – an ugly story.

 

There was little credence granted his tales of the monsters at sea,

or that everything he had been was the best - in all circumstances - he could be.

He knew that even while the empty nights only fed broken promises,

those were still nights he broke his back for – for the hope of seeing smiles on all faces.

 

- The Dark Nights and Sunrises at Sea

Santiago would lose his core essence – a sense of duty and adulation of his countryfolk,

A jewel now a menace – to bottles of liquors and empty walls only now could he sulk.

He lived in an irony of each sunrise being a dreaded awakening,

and each netting quest – a reminder of his shameful becoming.

 

But as Hemmingway shares it:

“being determined and never giving up indicates what kind of human being one is”

For even when the Universe a restoration gives,

it remains not enough a sheet to script from conviction what lay in the cronies of the heart.

And knowing how way leads unto way; and with how alone one-a-man lives,

it becomes a cause to seek: the purge of the soul and commitment to a better start.

 

- A Recreation

So there goes he now on a journey of renaissance:

A lone wolf – but now wide-eyed!

Still a selfless earthling – but evolved!

Still a fishing sailor – but now with an armoury!

No less of a broken  but healing champion.

Not a victim, not a villain – but only a Man; A son of Earth.

 

And when all was said and done, there was this one to whom Santiago would say: “I know you did not leave because you doubted. Papa made you leave. Yet I still find you here on my team, standing and fighting next to me”. That One, he learnt, was naught but Himself – A Re-creation.

“Everything about this recreation was old but for its eyes. They were the same colour as of the the sea – and were cheerful, undefeated and wise”

 

 

 

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