Building Ships

They start from seeming chaos,
Molten metal poured, moulded, hammered, rolled.
In machine shops, men hunch over lathes
And frown at slow-revolving shapes,
Engrossed in mysteries of size and tolerances,
Like alchemists who turn base metal into ships.

And somehow, one day, on the sloping slip,
Giant ribs stand stark, pointing skywards,
Like a carcass picked clean by colossal vultures.
Men swarm over them for weeks
Amid the endless din of drills and riveting,
And the hiss and spray of welders’ sparks.

Steel sides appear, decks are laid,
And suddenly a towering ship is there,
Black-sided, vast, festooned with ropes and cradles,
Impossibly balanced on its narrow keel.
Then launch day has arrived -
A bottle breaks and she is on her way.

Slowly at first, and then with massive, gathering speed,
She slides with grace towards her raison d’être.
Drag chains rattle and pull taut,
The waiting waves receive her like a bride,
The tugs hoot and she is gently towed away
To be prepared for life upon the seas.

So we, conceived by chance and shaped by many hands,
Set out. We know not where, nor what shores we shall see,
What storms, what calms we shall endure,
What monsters of the deep, what siren songs,
Our only certainty a final resting place
Far from the lost land of our home.