“The sea took some, the steamers took others, the graveyards of the earth will account for the rest. Singleton has no doubt taken with him the long record of his faithful work into the peaceful depths of an hospitable sea.” – Joseph Conrad
Have mercy on the mariner, they pray
from shoreline’s still promontories, but such
for me was prayed in vain. Two hundred days,
at most, did I count from the cripple’s crutch
of port, since the day I came man enough
to sail. I learned fast that land’s a thing best
beheld shrinking o’er the gunwale, the rough
symphony of hull cleaving crest to crest
rising from the brine. Behold, ye cloistered
scholars, the ink upon this weathered hide,
the record of decades under hoisted
cloth. Take note, for it leaves with the tide.
Remain I, till death, to water, devout.
The ocean within, the ocean without.
-- Alexander Ross is an American poet. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming with, Antelope Hill, Corncrake Magazine, APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, The Society of Classical Poets, Gopnik Press, Michigan City Review of Books, Don’t Submit, HAWKEYE, Horror Sleaze Trash, and Ape House. He can be found on both Substack and X @YeomanPoet.
