~

from the dock he calls her name,
now beside he grasps her rails,
deftly steps aboard her frame,
to loose her lines of mooring.

leaned o’er, he shares his secret hopes,
ocean breeze her mast is callling;
then wings are spread with hoisted ropes,
the call of ocean’s blue alluring.


he guides her through the shallow drafts,
gliding faster, hull and ballast,
like seabird’s cry on wing, her craft,
his touch responding in devotion.

she heels about now, lunging forward,
together ’cross the waves;
he, the author of this poetry,
keeps rhythm with each changing motion.


they float above the salty spray,
white sails, her wings, a swan of grace;
in fading light, ’cross waterway,
her highway now a full moon bright.

his bearing set for emerald isle,
she tacks to follow compass lines;
together tame the ocean’s wild,
in flight as one to form their rhymes.


from high atop her outstretched form,
he guides her body through the night;
shifting lines to feel the storm,
like bedsheets thrown, arched and open.

then far above this watery bed,
her canvas flows with watercolor,
of sapphire, jade and ruby red;
a sunrise o’er bejeweled ocean.


sailing on,
in stunning sight;
as one they sigh,
in heavenly flight.

~

*post script.

unwinding from the first work week of the new year and a chaotic Friday night commute, these out-of-the-blue, out-from-the-blue lines strike me as i hear strains of Chrstopher Cross crooning his 1980 classic, “Sailing”, from my dear wife's Pandora station, aptly named.  

“Well, it's not far
down to paradise,
at least it's not for me.
And if the wind is right
you can sail away,
and find tranquility.  
Oh, the canvas can do miracles,
just you wait and see.
Believe me.”

the song takes me back to a simpler time in our marriage, but sailing... this always takes me back, all the way to childhood, and a carefree state of mind.  and no wonder... for in my pre-teen years, i and my brothers helped our father build a small, eighteen foot, sailing sloop, crafted after plans he found in a Family Circle magazine.  thereafter, childhood summers were spent freshwater sailing at the foot of Fuji, sometimes alone, sometimes together.  it is no surprise that today i am most at peace on or beside the water.