Passing Ships.

I don’t intend to make a habit of quoting Bob Dylan lyrics, but I just have to post my all-time favourite line:

Upon the beach, where hound dogs bay

At ships with tattooed sails. 

~ Gates of Eden.

 

I was always fascinated by passing ships when I was a kid. I would sit on a clifftop and patiently watch them cross the skyline. I didn’t know where they’d come from or where they were going. They were just there, silent, and then gone. It’s one of my earliest recollections of a sense of mystery. The ‘tattooed sails’ of Dylan’s ships places them in times long-past, and so adds an element of fantasy. They might be ghosts of ships, and I imagine the scene at night with a dozen full moons reflecting off the waves. I once drove a hundred miles to the coast on a whim, just to watch the moon rise over the sea. My love of dogs and beaches needs no explaining.