7231. INDIGENT SOILMASTER

INDIGENT SOILMASTER

Why shall they rock in the water, these

boats? The slow confluence of tide and

wind make for the rise of the moving surface,

and I notice, and love it so. To my back, the

dim city sits in its own sulphurous fog  -

things barely seen and outlined. Out front,

the wet highway bounds to lands unseen.

Huge freighters and tankers run by with

their feelings of heavy and doubt. The water

holds what it cannot sink. 'We've been at sea 

now for three months, I think,' the sailor would

say. On board these ships, I can see nothing;

maybe a crane or a hatch, no people. The strange

and commanding devices of steering and lift, they're

all electronic now. The crew goes about, by contrast,

as if like a house-maid with a dusting cloth. 

-

And then, and then, I throw my spirit out  -  to them I

scream : 'Take me! Dissolve too my heart and lungs in

your salted waters and never bring me home. I scan, 

and gaze, and wait, and wish to go.