Epilogue

Epilogue

Jenna K Funkhouser

“…And what you thought you came for
Was only a shell, a hint of meaning,
From which the purpose breaks only when
It is fulfilled.” - T.S. Eliot

The wind was as cold as the waves
that night as the ferry glassed over
the November sea. In a makeshift corner,
we felt as if we had neither home
nor country, two travelers neither
here nor there, just the moon and
the endless sea. And everything we held
now seemed as a glass which darkens
when the light is drawn, an emptied
table. We were not the ones
who had come; we were not
the ones who had gone. We were now
the ones who held a sack of strange coins,
gifts from our fathers, knowing
they were useless in the marketplace
we were sent to.

Why then did we carry them? Perhaps
because we knew they did not belong
in the marketplace at all; that they added
up to something beyond their worth
and became more in being what they were.
And perhaps because we knew, if we
carried them, our wealth would be the reminder
of what we carried, the gift of gift remembered.

Once, I heard a Russian story of the rouble
which could not be changed; each use
valued it back again to the full. I thought
of this as I fingered the seeds of the gifts,
the space where the shells
had cracked so quietly, revealing the meat
within. And all we carried seemed then
like a rouble we kept on spending, and finding
again, in the resurrection of shell and seed
and of glass refilled and ship rising
on the tide of the moon and sea. And I knew
the way the wheat knows when to grow
and bend and lap up the pools of gold
from the gushing light, that I would be
the seed now carried and given; would
find myself husked from the shell of emptiness
and find that somehow, the gift returned
again and again into our arms, selves
and seeds becoming more in being
what they are.

---

Jenna K Funkhouser
Poet & Storyteller

Jenna K Funkhouser has traveled the world as a nonprofit storyteller and encountered courageous and luminous souls in every beautiful corner of it. The author of two collections of poetry, she has recently been published in the St. Katherine Review, Spiritus Journal, and the Ekphrastic Review, among others. Her second book of poetry, Bright Inhabited Lives, was released by Kelsay Press in June 2024. You can read more of her work at jennakfunkhouser.com.

Photography by Eriks Abzinovs