Captain Blue Eyes

You launch me alive,    
For each compass point you mark      
I am bound, your craft.      
Steady you navigate      
The ballast of my trust.      
Well-provisioned, seaworthy we hold.      
     
We aren’t the first, but let us live the best!      
The rest are scribed, stowed on rolled charts,      
Ending hard by this new sea.      
The rest sing prologue fathoms below      
 At best a wake to celebrate      
Griefs to free.      
The rest call out shoals and reefs      
The best of our shipwrecks      
Arise to turn rogue lighthouse,      
Warn, protect, remind,      
Throwing light on inscrutable crossing  
Above the blackpool eye of Kraken      
Below the rain of Lucifer’s fiery Fall,      
Peril on the face of the water    
Aboard we laugh, yet free.      
     
Alive our restless crest rides swelling wave      
Nods drowsy on listless, mirror sea.      
We look up, still children, open      
Confident of the sun’s kiss,  
Arms wide, eyes shut mouth open
Taking on waiting on more.      
   
You my rudder cut the currents sure;      
Under the press of your palm I wake to purpose      
Your breath swells my white sail      
My stellar compass, you pace me      
Stern to aft, sensing sea change      
Are they mowing hay in the high Andes?*      
You duck my fickle boom,    
You know how to tack,      
Where to drop anchor,    
When to give slack,      
And even to unhand  the wheel    
In narrows where your vision fails
So I can lash you fighting to the mast.      
     
You find, mend and fortify      
Infirmity in this rib      
Seal and patch my frame      
I forgive your moonlit pacing      
And the rough side      
Of your bite-scarred heart and hand.      
The oil burns bright in the pilot house      
Where you rest easy napping      
My decks lay down the bounded plain      
You gaze at silk auroras    
Strip and dip on warm nights, boots off      
Your footprint wets my spine    
hands brand my wheel.      
The rigging hums in purpose glad for you.
  
We swim phosphorescent water,    
Babes in a great womb      
At dusk in summer’s calling sea      
Eyes lifted to  crystal spheres    
We are gears in the clockwork dome  
Turning perfect and in key  
Fingers trailing sultry    
The meniscus of this tilting deep.      
 
We are water skates tramping creation      
Pressed suspended in the salty film      
Slipping between the vast bodies    
Of the rutting, hungry gods      
Tossed in pleasure’s endless bleed  
As the deep is ravaged by sky.    
We are droplets, flotsam, creation’s debris,    
Escaped unnetted, together, free.      
Without you, I list      
Without me, you drink salt sea.      
     
I bear you on inland waterways, natural pair      
Reflecting the moon’s sweet wavering path,      
Dreaming at her threshold on the dock      
All night we drift on good wood      
Lifted, fallling, throwing day’s heat back      
To the slapping water’s tease.      
We curl like cats entwined dreaming
Falling and dreaming of falling      
All tumbling breath, heat,      
In the spaces of night      
Fingers toes tongues mixing light.      
     
Running swift and bright      
You press, we strain and bend      
You command me to the roaring edge      
Grasping my lines you lean into the gale      
You captain me to shudder, not splinter      
Driving hard each seam and sail.      
     
I commission all your skill      
Your cap is thrown, a die is cast      
The oil burns long In a  well tended  lamp    
We need not be breached or lost at sea.      
Know fear and doubt for what they are—      
First mates wisdom, humility.      
     
Unleash in the bright race      
I say take no prisoners,      
Strike for the horizon,      
Cutting arcs of foam, slicing the  northerly      
Below the tease of high cloud castles,      
Trimmed to play the fickle breeze      
We are formidable, seasoned,      
Equipped to be swift and bold.      
     
My timbers ache to course full clip,      
Humming taut with your nimble thoughts      
To harbor in your arms,      
Drop anchor in the sweet tides      
Of your breath and steady heart.