I teach others to sail,
Quite literally,
And I am good at that,
Many many people will attest
To my passion and effectiveness,
But sailing is way more
Than just a glorious physicality,
Its a perfect analogy
Of life and love and death,
I also coach and mentor
The lives and loves
The living and doing
Of others,
Also in truth their endings too,
And I offered that best
Of me to you,


But something you seem
To fail to grasp is that whilst
Tacking can be wide,
Deliberate and slow,
Sedate even,
A gybe is the opposite,
Stern to wind,
A boom crashing across
And the cause of many a capsize,
You cannot be gentle gybing
In any kind of proper wind,
Its either one way,
Or it is the other,
It is sudden and immediate and NOW,
So no,
I have not been tacking,
Although at one point maybe
I was going that way,


With an icky feeling
In my heart like
The warning trembling
In a sail's leach,
I am about to gybe,
And it will be sudden,
There will be
A rapid change of direction,
I am a good sailor,
A great seafarer and handler
Of boats
Both real and metaphorical,
So my gybe will be anticlimactic,
Calm even,
But I will be accelerating
Away from you,
Your self centredness,
Your precious secrets,
Your rage,
Months of scorn and derision and accusation,
And while I do not know
My destination,
Indeed in truth I have none,
I do know the seas will quickly
Be much calmer,
The spray far less and that
Without the ice of attitude
And pain,
And at a parting rate of five knots each
In just twenty four hours we will be
Over two hundred miles apart,
I wonder then,
Will you OR I
Find peace?