Óvitnaðr

Not witnessed. Not known. Not gone.

It was not built,
and thus no hand recalls
the hour of its appearing.

No keel was named,
no timber sworn to purpose.
Yet there it was.

Whole enough to not be wreckage,
bare enough to bear no voyage.

Its masts lay level with the water — 
so it seemed.
Yet caught by sideward sight,
not held in full regard,
they stood as masts are meant to stand.

The gaze could hold but one at once.
To test was to undo it.

It neither pressed against the tide
nor yielded to it.
It remained — 
as facts remain
when no voice claims them.

No report was made.
Not from fear,
nor from command,
but from the gentler failure
to find a reason.

No captain stood upon its deck.
And so no question followed it,
and no answer sought it.

Those who saw it
spoke later of other things:
of winds that mattered,
of shores that counted,
of events agreed upon.

The sail was clear.
Not absent — 
present without image.

To mark it
was to note
the act of looking,
and nothing more.

The hull did not depart.
It stayed
where it had not been entered.

Some say it still drifts — 
not between worlds,
but between sentences
never spoken aloud.

Come nearer,
and you will find
no trace of cargo.
Yet call it empty,
and the word will not agree.

It seeks no harbour.
It awaits no end.

It exists only so far
as the world
permitted itself
not to
Know.