IN THE RIGGING: TEARS BEGAN TO FALL

IN THE RIGGING: TEARS BEGAN TO FALL

We were near Cinfuego waiting for pirates

We had been there for over two hundred years.

The stars had migrated and had chosen

Other places they wanted to visit.

We have been here previously. We had

See the constellations form and reform

Many times.  We have been to other worlds

It was indeed the sea that carried us there. 

They had propped the king in a corner

But he had been there so long

He looked like a pile of sticks

With some bits of cloth.

Sometimes the sea would turn 

Bright yellow as if the light

Came from within, the wave

Tops glowing.  At other times

Even in the night, the entire

Sea was a violet as if rubbed

To a burnish and then the next

Moment, opal, perfect opal.

We would take to the high

Rigging to see this. It was the sea.

They had me on gallants working all

The way to the Moonraker. 

Sometimes men seemed to be 

Walking in the surface of the water.

They were not ghosts.  They were men.

We lived in rooms filled with sand.

The tide came in blistering the sand.

We were above the wave line among

The lemon trees.  The sands looked black.

The water sounded pleasing.  The king 

Surely would return from that pile of sticks.

Surely he would return.  These seas shall

Remain unknown forever, mysterious and clear.

The clock weaving in and out of what we choose

To call dreams only because we are

Old and cannot but be the dreamer.

It seems a fair, fair wind follows.

A clear water indeed.  We know no longing.

We are captured by the History of

The Night Borges spoke of, our eyes

Still scanning the horizon, should there

Be a place where we might land.