RIVAL ATTRACTION

Posted by Admin on 31 January 2009, 12:00 am

A morning haze obscures
the mainland shore – subdues,
in silhouette, the bunker-black
a schooner’s hull presents,
where, anchored in the Roads,
three-masted, sizeable, and trim,
she sends her canvas up the mizzen,
main, and fore – with gaffs below
their peak allows light airs
to play in waves from luff to leach,
until the halyards complete
their tensioned task.
The anchor surfaces – she drifts
astern and veers a few degrees
to port before, responding to
the helm, she gains some
steerage-way.
While, quite oblivious of all
the beauty, poetry, and drama that
attends each time a sail-boat puts
to sea, a man beside me on a seat
whets his imagination on The Sun.