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The ship is being prepared, but instead of helping I take a few hours. I take these hours to walk back to the crystal lake I know you loved. I shed my clothes and I wade in. The albatross are still asleep: it’s morning, they will come later. I sink beneath the cold surface. Somehow I can feel you here. I knew I would. Not a haunting, but something gentler.

I think of how you returned my children to me, each one of them.

I will go back to your body now. This beautiful body. This strong body that endured all it could. I will stay with it, I will wash it and wrap it and hold it as we leave this place. I will carry it across the sea, and I will return it to your land, to live among the snow gums. It is just a body but it was yours, and beloved.