A H O Y !
Richard Wilbur, Sea Captain

I’ve been to pools, on horses, rescued birds
And turned all into parables for words,

Though I might add, depending on the day,
That it was nothing but the briefest stay

The muse would grant. My true Penelope,
As Pound would say, the rolling back of sea,

The rising swell from which sea monsters wail
And turn the ocean over without fail,

Was where my crafty heart would make to know
Uncharted seas, the steady mast ablow

With the east wind, its tip tracing the sky.
Adventures had, romances won, then I

Would navigate this little ship across
The scales and through the line to the sound. What loss

I suffered, cargo falling overboard,
I came to know would just have kept me moored,

And that my wrestling the wild waves and foam,
Was all to earn my docking safely home.

Copyright © 2004 Jason Gray All rights reserved
from American Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission