Sail Into Your Heart
Sounds in the deep
Almost audible rumble
A sense of motion
Leviathan moves
Shifting balance
Gravity suddenly
Unpredictable
Sailing this craft
My heart a tiller in my hand
Time to tack
Carve a graceful curve
Around the immense wet
Shiny back breaching the surface
Rounding the roil
I steer beneath the great arch
In the shade of the tail
A moment of fear
Should my keel scratch her skin
But in another moment I am clear
Flukes slap like thunder
Sending a tsunami
To speed me on my way
Maelstrom marks
Where she descends
In a liquid pirouette
A wave
Another wave
And nothing
Becalmed for days
Shaded only by the mainsail
Alone on a glass sea
At last Calypso’s breath
Awakens my sleeping heart
Awakens me to now
It is time to come about
To set a new course
For anywhere
Sail into your heart. Take only what you need for the journey of a lifetime. Trust the breeze to behave only as breezes do. Trust the wind to fill your sails and only leave them empty for a while, now and then.
Deep beneath you living things move, hidden from sight, creating forces that influence your boat without your consent or knowledge. Instinctively you compensate and all is well until the storm comes to rock your boat.
If you are lucky you had a teacher to tell you to lower your sail and use your anchor to steer into the wind, and you steered into the wind and your boat bucked like a young wild horse, but the storm passed and all was well, a little bailing notwithstanding. However if you were less lucky you had no teacher and took the storm broadside or tried to outrun it, only to find yourself awash and sinking fast. Still, there might have been luck, a savior, but if not then to submerge was the only thing, your energy dissipating into the saline solution of life.
Saline, saline, over the bounding bay, many a stormy wind shall blow. Come back, Jack.
Hoist two sheets to the good west wind and fly full sail over the peaceful waves in the uninterrupted sun. Feel the freshness on your skin and smell the incomparable fragrance of the open sea. May you make port in good time, hungry for the company of your fellow humans and armed with salt water tales to tell and the light of wide sky travel in your eyes. They will love to hear what you have to say, I know it.
