Shipwreck
There’s something profoundly sad about a shipwreck
That draws it apart from the other forms of loss
Whether it be the ill-fated Pequod from Moby Dick,
The Eliza Donovan from my own novel,
Or the infamous Edmund Fitzgerald
That Gordon Lightfoot wrote his song about
We like to believe that there’s some Ariel in the Tempest,
To assure us that the men on board haven’t died,
Only undergone a sea-change,
Their eyes becoming pearls, their skin coral.
But ultimately, we know what it’s like to almost drown
Alone, cold, fighting for life, and thus we feel
Certain of knowing the bitter end
That these shipmen faced
And truly, as Gordon Lightfoot sings,
It feels like a witch in November
Setting her evil hand over a crystal ball with a ship inside,
Cackling, raising the waves in an early squall
To kill them all
And to leave us in mourning, setting candles on the shore.
No Going Back
Turns out, there’s no going back from fearlessness,
Once the world has
Put it in you
And the sweat of helplessness at the mention
Of Death’s name, washed away
I stretch my hands across a span of years
See them fanning out
In a magician’s deck
Pick one – any one –
And I was probably afraid
Then –
Of the loneliness that Bukowski writes about
Of failure. Of death’s icy grip and the realization that
No matter how I tried –
Life. Will. Have. Meant. Nothing.
But life bent and broke me
And shocked me and woke me
POOF!
The cards vanished.
It’s sad sometimes. I should be sad about it.
But now, there is nothing I fear
And there’s no going back.
A Book Like Mine
Has there ever been an adventure book like mine
Where the main character gets up for coffee in the morning
And wants to get going, and put some momentum into the world
But troubles abound?
Momentum is the thing –
Hard to manifest in the real world, easy to create on paper
But the rest would be similar enough
A (relatively) young hero, and her skills acquired thus far
Challenging the big, bad ol’ way things always were
Her faithful dog, a russet-colored Golden Shepherd
And books that hold all the answers
But
Sometimes
None.
Has there ever been an adventure book like mine
Where the main character feels such a lack
Of time and place and purpose
To a greater extent or a lesser,
In a world where all hands are bound?
No – I think
There has never been an adventure book written
About the struggle of a woman
Running in quicksand,
Never been one quite like mine.