11-13-2022, 07:12 AM
Short Voyages
I’ve seldom sailed on ferry-boats to cross
from mainland to an isle, then back again;
a landsman, I endured their dip and toss
less happily than bluff sea-faring men.
In each case destination was an island
which promised leisure, love, or Liberty–
a copper giant justifying my land,
a refuge from world’s cares with family.
Yet those small episodes resemble life:
its sailing forth in birth, its bounded stay,
and then a little trip, brief as a knife,
forgetting all one lived across the bay.
Or might it be that life’s the ferry ride
with work as one, and rest the other side?
I’ve seldom sailed on ferry-boats to cross
from mainland to an isle, then back again;
a landsman, I endured their dip and toss
less happily than bluff sea-faring men.
In each case destination was an island
which promised leisure, love, or Liberty–
a copper giant justifying my land,
a refuge from world’s cares with family.
Yet those small episodes resemble life:
its sailing forth in birth, its bounded stay,
and then a little trip, brief as a knife,
forgetting all one lived across the bay.
Or might it be that life’s the ferry ride
with work as one, and rest the other side?
Non-practicing atheist