When I was very little,
I held my father's hand as I ran to keep up,
with my parents and my older siblings,
on a trip to a city street far from our home.
We walked into a cool, crisp art gallery,
and I looked up at the domed ceiling,
thinking how much it looked
like one of my beloved roses, that I already loved.

I clung to my father's large, warm hand,
peeking up at art that was hung too high for me to see,
and then, as we walked endlessly, I cried
because I was tired, and felt myself lifted
into my father's strong arms.
As the tears dried on my face, I forgot I was tired
and thirsty, because I was looking for the first time
into a painting that consumed my little being.

The entire canvas was a storm of grey and angry blue,
sharp white tips to the waves that were cresting,
my entire imagination captivated by the scene of
so much fury, and then I looked closer at the red speck
in the middle of it all, and I realised it was a boat
struggling against the raging storm, barely staying
afloat, barely able to make it, and I could almost
feel the spray on my face as though I were on it.

'Wait', I said as my family moved, and my father
remained, allowing me to stare longer at the scene
before me. I reach out with one small hand to touch
and my father takes my hand in his, because I'm
not allowed, and so I point at the red, barely there,
and my father nods as I lean my head against his cheek.
'What happened to the boat?' I ask, because I want to know
if this painting has a sequel, an ending.

'I don't know', my father replies, already looking around
to see where the rest of our family are. He wants us to
move on, but wants me to have the answer I need so he
peers closer at the canvas. 'Maybe they're okay, you can
see the boat cresting, that means they're fighting', he said.
He pauses, and then, 'That storm is the world and it is life,
and the boat, that's you, little rose, and you have to remember
that when it's all raging all around, that you are going to keep
on keeping on, fighting to stay afloat, it's what we do.'

I have travelled since then, been to many art galleries,
I have viewed works of art celebrated by the world, and worth
many millions, but that painting remains the one that has
moved me the most, and my father's words stay with me
even on days like this one, when I can feel the spray in my face
and I feel lost, one small rose adrift in the storm raging around me,
and I keep on keeping on, fighting to stay afloat, setting this course
and sails, sailing through the maw of the storm until the winds
grow gentle and kinder, the sea stops trying to swallow me,
and the world lets me exhale because everything's okay once more.

Penned by my hand on the 20th of Daedalan, in the year 886 AF.