by Gene Stewart
Follow a trough to The Moon,
Its light a path through veils of mist,
Its shadowed side a lure for unimagined lusts;
Follow light to dark through depths surging.
Waves sloshed on tilted bedrock,
Moving in quakes of our planet’s agony,
Splash over all edges, swamp scupper to bilge,
Pumped out only to seek entry again,
Such waves rock us, roll us over, sink us
In plunges away from air’s freedom
Toward pressured depths massively surging;
Unstable ocean bed bounces skyward.
Frames twist, decking planks rattle, sails
Shred with bat-flap shrieks, a gale upon us,
Keel cracks, main mast falls, jibs fly as
Makeshift harpoons as ropes lash us.
Tossed up, falling in slides down steep slopes
Of unsettled water bigger than our ship had been
Before it shattered in hollow hopeless surrender,
We ride out stormy hate, survive rain’s hammering,
Untold tons of ocean fury avalanching onto us,
Each gasp of air a cruel taunt, forced lingering in
Terror’s grip, squeezed beyond endurance until
We find ourselves, so few, afloat, within sight,
Near enough to holler, waving frantic hands.
Swimming to cluster, human jellyfish, sharks
Soon to find us, we hate sun’s burn, shiver
In cold water. Starving, we suffer thirst.
Smoke on horizons too high, too far for us
To signal, ships passing around us as currents
Drift us farther out of charted channels,
Our one surprise, an atoll, almost an island.
We call it Miracle, this speck of dust floating
In oceanic blind-eye nothingness. Fresh water,
Coconut palms, crabs, fish, enough wild pigs
To let us husband a farm; we rejoice at life.
No way to reproduce, us few all males, no way
To further this society we have won; another
Cruel taunt of slightly-extended life. Yet who
In any place is different? Who is better off?
We’ll live a little, born of the sea, cast-offs with
Faded memories of loved faces, touches, places.
We’ll eke out a few more years, our last to find
A way to bury himself, perhaps at sea, fittingly.
Follow a trough to The Moon,
Its light a path through veils of mist,
Its shadowed side a lure for unimagined lusts;
Follow light to dark through depths surging.
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