Castaway

by

Rick Bandy

We sailed from the harbor
A thousand shining dawns across our bow
And drank together the exhilaration
Of spray on the salt air.
So sleek our craft, so weathered the crew
Hold full of cargo from sojourns past.
And shouts of well-wishers from shore.
We stood the deck, rope-roughened hands helm-wise.
And stared into the future.

Dazzled by the myriad jeweled flow,
Lulled by the song of breezes in our rigging
We sought neither sighting of the sun
Nor star to guide us.
We left the Ocean of Tranquility
And sailed headlong onto a sea of doubt.
Oblivious of Rubicon crossed,
We awoke to a red sky morning.

Brave bark now pummeled
We refused our fears their voice
Even as the hold filled with brine.
And when at last it came time to cast
Over the gunwales unneeded ballast
I went overboard with it.
To swallow acrid mouthfuls
To gasp for air and flail
To be washed up broken and bedraggled
On this foreign shore
The last of my pride among the flotsam.

In my sea chest, buried in a tangled mass
of memory and socks,
A small velvet -lined box with a ring.
I have nothing else to show for the journey.
Looking out at the endless blue I wonder
Did you ever make landfall?

NEXT?
Why don't you look at The Questionnaire
by: Joyce Hemsley
from: Sunderland, England, UK

To visit all of Rick Bandy's poems, click HERE

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