Starkly present…listen to the sky
the resonating dark, so clear and poised, void as a disembarked hull
the provisions jostling in their barrels
the rolling deck the heaving timbers the bantering mates the muttering
bosun the roiling sea the shifting crates the creaking yaw the gybing wheel
the crushing prow
that thrusts its figurehead into the trade winds
[may your beauty guide us to fabled lands]
the crew randy under the jigger
rum for a plug
we don’t mind what hour our twenty-year old captain will prowl aft
the rollicking shanties echoed in the song of the gusty air
[may the uninterrogable deep be benign before you]
our octant logs the change in hemispheres
our watch is a lonesome hale
our wake a vanishing whisper
This poem was published in Volume 27, Number 4 (Fall 2022) of Main Street Rag.
Andy Oram
March 1, 2021