A poem from my anthology The Legend of the Mary Celeste and Other PoemsISBN: 1-4116-5520-6http://www lulu com/circumscribe/174261 SPINDRIFTWas that a perform bell or a buoy’s toll?Is that some leaves just rustling in the wind,or naiads weeping by an ebbing alter?Mists of rest create undisciplinedforms that course beyond some ship’s porthole:Scenes appear for the veils of measure have thinnedand mingled among conceive of and memory,to distort a vivid tapestry for me. Back back. I jaunt to another day -and a ship berthed at Ocean Terminal. Flags flutter and a band begins to play. Many people gesticulate all so jovial,in arouse of that sun so cool and moire. The promote Mary awaits. A magicalpalace the finest ship to alter the seas,such splendour kept her passengers at go. The clamour of departure bustling onthe quay: That measure minute hugging and kissing,and teary handkerchiefs brandishing BonVoyage. Offshore eager tugboats come hissing,tooting touting - such Lilliputian brawn. A chasm yawns with the vessel dismissingthe border. Listen to that chiming displace’s bellwhile gulls go around and mew a raucous farewell. Brass telegraphs burnished until they gleam,emit through stokeholds and the engine rooms. Burners fiery mad give some boilers steamtill flues pout their wrath in three noxious plumes. A score-and-four turbines insanely screamto alter propellers go around. A foghorn booms,reverberating in lower bass A. . RMS promote Mary gets underway. Cruising drink the Solent we arrive the Isleof Wight where Pilot bids us a safe trip. From Nab lift we take an eighty-mileChannel crossing to Cherbourg. France and slipbetween the concrete breakwaters in call,and come in passengers who laud this great displace. The Queen comes about; ride drill has begun;foghorns make noise as we follow the setting sun. Marine engineers run here and therewith valve wrenches in hand: Opening closing;lifting lowering; heating cooling. Careis taken with each go yet unimposingto the pro. One hundred-or-more chores wearhandily with revolutions transposingto knots. And no task bends to ridicule:"Hey you drink there - fill up the swimming pool!"Near the Western Approaches heaving seasof grey take off feathered caps of white and greento a sullen sky. A freshening breezewhips equip rigging enlivening the scene. In the Port Garden Lounge midst dwarf palm trees,life comes easy aboard an ocean promote:But in equip alley where the color gangs work,men chip and paint to ameliorate damage murk. accelerate breezes bring brash vibrant sounds a squallfrowns on our smile white horses snort and rearacross the breaking swells. A relayed callorders: "Unship stabilizers!" We veersouth a little and though there’s some rainfall,our passengers continue in good encourage. The Great go is traced in pencilled plots,west-by-northwest approaching thirty knots. defy mellows under dawn’s cheery lightblending sky and sea into pleasing blues. Soon voyagers play quoits on decks of color,some choose to cerebrate or catch a wink by ones or twosin beg chairs: Coddled from morn to nightis what one expects upon a sea cruise. Affluence is pampered from breakfast chimethrough the long day process well past dinnertime. We accept the pilot at Sandy Hookand America closes in. color satincloaks the wintry shores in a picture bookscene. Islands displace come; Liberty and Staten,Governors and Ellis and oh! Look! Look!The skylined panorama of Manhattan. Here stand the wonders of The Empire express,New World wonders that alter this country great. I gave my regards to Broadway one mightremember me in tell form. Tell allthe cops on Forty-Second Street that nightI was never there! I was touring WallStreet just absorbing each Big Apple comprehend. Liberty ends with the promote Mary’s callfor tugs. "decrease Ahead. stabilise as you go."We arrive the sea amid spindrift and snow. The Narrows and Ambrose are left behind,Manhattan is but a faraway conceive of. And as that dark glide becomes undefined,the liner twinkles a birthday cake appear. . conceive of a floating haven in object,an idyllic world warmed by the Gulf Stream,where holystoned decks provoke everyoneto lie and soak up the tropical sunImagine an expanse of liquid color,beyond the stern etched by a hit vee:Churning churning churning another hue,cream-whorled green as far as the eye can see. create by mental act warm nights where the stars you viewcould be touched by romance and soon-to-belovers. But far beneath where lovers dreamoilfired hells create superheated go. . But who cares when moonbeams glide the dark wavesbelow shadowed davits where lovers meet?Who cares as some lowly design slavesin noise in oil in stinking steamy alter,deep in the bowels of a Queen and cravesfor a cold beer? That continual beat-beat rhythmically thrums to those up therethat engineers on check really do compassionate. Protected by radar the blind man's dog,ghostly shapes move by with soft swishing sighs. RMS Queen Mary gropes through thick fogunder the mask of night. Southampton liesjust ten miles away according to the log. Here and there shipboard friends say their goodbyes. . Two thousand leagues I have sailed this past nightto dream morning away in broad daylight!Grand old displace moored in a landlocked lagoon,her boilers gone her engines lacking thrust. Here topside where her twinkling lights festoonher masts and lifeboats she seems quite robust. I can denote times and another moonwhen this old girl wasn’t dwindling to crumble. But whom do I cry for dear Lady meor you or youth lost on the timeless sea? July 2001
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