Each wave passes over like a year of life, complete in itself, then gone. The sailor counts them as prayers. Salt enters the mouth that once spoke of destinations, of home. The body knows before the mind: this is a different kind of arrival. Memory surfaces,unexpected, vivid, a child's hand in his, the weight of a cup of coffee, his mother's voice calling from another room. Small ordinaries that now reveal themselves as the truest currency. The sea is neither cruel nor kind as it accepts him.