Chapman’s Piloting,
Seamanship and Small Boat Handling
Was it your idea or mine
to spend one winter
evening each week side by
side in the high school
lunch room years before
Power
Point or video
or your flagging heart
gave one
last gasp, the room filled
with hopeful sailors
soaking
up the arcana
like sponges, the
Commodore
leaning into the
gale of our ignorance from
the flying bridge of
the varnished plywood
lectern,
gripping the slanted
top like gunnels, epaulets
flat as carrier
decks while you took notes
in your
crude block style and I
flipped through Chapman’s
Piloting,
Seamanship and Small
Boat Handling searching for
clues
on navigating
the uncharted water where
we bobbed, grasping for
flotsam in the wreckage, our
Mayday feint, every
man for himself, stark
code of
the sea prevailing
as we drifted off, Crusoe
without his Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment