The Sailor

Sailors love stars as the lost
children do. A pure love arising
from some natural awareness
of the soul and solitude.
A magnetic force that tugs
in me when wind stirs the stars
and rolls billowing mists up
from the sea, the giddy yearnings
of one who is hopelessly bewildered
and alone on the earth.

I have a way of thinking aloud
that cost me two wives
already. Still, there are maps
in the firmament drawing me on
toward some home that heaven
put in me to crave.

Sailors have an appetite for weather–
the rain and snow in their teeth,
a thirst for wind crooning
amid the rigging and through
their salt tossed hair–a love
for being buffeted from one

port to the next. But stars remain
the first love, always true
to course and constant. Beacons
deep in the eternal dark, transmitting
love and comfort from the one
who set us all spinning through time.

No, there is no ocean calling me,
though when water is peaceful
there’s no better place to sleep
and to dream–this lodestone
of the compass at my heart
is a field of stars who know
a love no man could guess
and I will chase
as over the sea they dance.