SS

Their vessel had long since sank, its body drowned beneath the sea,

Its last few portholes blinking away the stormy tears,

Its masts, like arms, torn completely free.

So five did watch from the last of boats that tried to stand

Upon the waves as amidst the crying, writhing agony

Of the bursting ship, as its pieces split amidst the scalpel blades

Of lightning severing the boards apart in a one-by-one split.

Thunder boomed like crashes as waves rolled like scrabbling

Hands upon the great vessel and upon the little one,

Whose flag bore the same sign as the shattered mast.

The little one did ride along the waves that slapped

It hard again and again as the five aboard did startle

To their places as the tangled riggings holding to their lifeboat

Did sever themselves and oars were placed amidst the waves,

Thus one man leaned forward in the frothy brine and took

In the waves as he barked out command, no captain

Was he, just a man in a worn blue coat and stocking cap,

But his eyes, grey and old took to the roving

First, and none could call themselves but worse, for quickly

Were they free of undertow’s harm as the two oarsmen pushed

On: “On yes on!” The great navigator bellowed above the din,

The oarsmen nodded, one dressed in rolled up sleeves

With dirty stains and rust-colored spots gripped tight the wooden oars

So he felt the years the wood had once been born in and now

It spared his very life, as his better half in similar dress spat off the starboard side:

“These seas are filled with foul bilge that fills my mouth,

It coats my tongue and fills my mouth with ugly taste.”

“Hush, hush, the storm roars and we must hear it to have pace,”

Muttered one who lay in the base of the boat, he listened hard

As he clutched his bruised throat, he sighed and listened to

The slapping sounds as he nursed his wound and wrung clean

His water-logged cotton pants and coats, their green faded and darker now than before,

His companion in the bottom lay with his eyes closed,

A hang dog head and with little hope of much life,

Pantry apron marked with blood and cooking stains,

He sighed and said, “I smell the evil of this sea, our new life begun

Will be the end of me.”

And so the vessel pushed on as the five did drive on,

The leader barking, the foul and the silent oars men hauling on,

The listener and his doomed friend,

All rocked on til the sun drew through,

And a ship did come and hauled all aboard,

The captain of the ship greeted them with simples words

And brilliant whites and hat on right,

As they, hoarse and dirty, did but wail and whisper as they

Found their bunks below and laid within the cradles of the ship:

A simple symbol and an anecdote of storms and drifts.