LIFE AT SEA (POEM)

Life at Sea 

©1964, 2013 Dean Metcalf

                             

A sailor in a bar

said this to me:

"There is no life

like the life at sea

when the stars are

     close and bright and your own;

the night sky is a cool dark lake

and flying fish flutter and leap

from the bow's white and pearly

phosphorescent wake."

He talked awhile of sunsets

in the South Pacific,

with all the Western sky

awash in rose and gold;

he spoke of wild-eyed, salt-rimed men

and of the sights and sounds and smells

     of Eastern ports

and people with half-closed, slanted eyes

               and yellow skin.

"But what," I asked,

"of months away from home,

of wet fog and rain squalls and times

     when the ocean

     and the ship

     and all the world

are in sickening, neverending motion?"

He smiled a slight, sad, half-smile and said,

"I see you've been to sea yourself,"

and I said yes,

I had.

                              Feb 29 1964 USS MONTROSE