So? I watch ships.
I do it alone, not from shame, but to be sane.
Predictable gliding sideways hotels
and malls and wheelless truck haulers,
Guardians of the watery plains,
Observers of the horizon and expanse and depth -
And the heights, too;
Waving at us, sounding a salute for us, feeding and moving us.
20 thousand seven hundred sixty-three tons to transport
With effortless glide.
The piling water on the bulbous bow skipping and jumping,
those seaway dolphins playing along the copper hulls.
And our 24 feet gives all it can
as we relax with friends lapping up the spray and rusty sun.
The insurmountable power of the silent deck
Bound only by its own Herculean capacity.
Then it passes another on Ontario, in the canal,
Waiting turns at the locks like
ebullient children lined up for the thrill ride.
Waves run up on her, or tap tap against her sides.
She invariably survives,
The stoic sorceress of unrelenting drive.
On shore, waves beach themselves,
As do deadlines and pretended competencies
and unmeetable obligations,
and being soul deprived through avaricious bounty.
And the shipmates can leave at any time,
since no rail or distance or depths compel their remaining.
The path of a landed journey is not filed.
Striped orange horses thwart most preparations
As does anxiety and selfishness, within and without.
But on the Seaway, the port is prepared and waiting.
Barry Freed has kept the dolphins’ paths clean and lively.
Teeming, teaming, gleaming, steaming with our needs and wants.
So, I watch ships.
