A Distant Sail

It would have been
a sacrilege to interfere
with th'horizon (of th'Sea's
not mine) yet,     

    a mizzenmast
began to primrose poke
its finger in my eye (not
th'Sea's)          

        protected
by th'restless specters of th'drifting
clouds all wet with glare:

a wiggling vigil of horizon
brought about th'indignant
steady undigging (of what might not
have been there previously) still,

in this breach of privacy (not mine
but th'Ocean's)... time enough
for an objective thought (not Mind's but

Memory's) swift motives like mermaids
on th'swim             

       --Just then: a signal
from th'pilot (who was not Gravedigger
but mere Chiropractor of graves
trembling silvery-topped waves) cracking

symptoms like requiems out there
enough to rim the horizon of sadness (his
sadness not Cemetery's) certainly

a cry for help all th'echo returned
out of th'peaks-pruned hallows
scooped with a mantle of smiles
th'mizzenmast        

  ... where it doesn't matter
were things to sink to th'Far
or to th'Bottom

--it only matters to God--

overtaken by th'corridor
of th'clear-crisp blue atop, or fused
in th'brilliant ocean of ever-shifting
hesitations within          

  th'rattle/paddle of oars
capitulating to the eternal tempo
of waves (that's The Automatic's

& not carefully clock-timed Man's) at
his own tempo
marking ... Th'Victory
of oars
that's ours