Weighing Anchors

Weighing Anchors

Sea anchors clutch vessels close to shelter,

rocking the cradle, rocking the crib,

braking the bow, but the drift sets in.

Imperceptible at first,

faintly, faintly

and a feather will fall as fast as steel

so stay your hands to ship’s wheel.

Bulkheads dread naught

in the bosom of the bay;

yet under the plimsoll line lurk

 touch currents that thrust leeway.

Listen to grandfather’s cries of lee – ho,

while the trimaran drives about its business,

neatly trimming Maltese cliffs,

boom briskly sparing with air, fore and aft,

flaps the foresail, only briefly, halting craft

where St Paul spreads his arms

across the bay,

to call him fast away.

Set sea anchors by the compass,

for kind storms blow in from the west,

to disturb the resting place.

Fix position with sextant and chart,

secure the driftwood,

still statue the bark.

Eternal tides turn in gentle movement

 under grey floating flotsam clouds.

Beating to shanties of passing days,

hearts and minds are washed with spray.

Father, thoughts athwart his brow,

claps binoculars to eyes,

casting off the sturdy guide ropes.

Bootpushing the stern from feather reeded banks

who list to starboard in rueful sigh,

wheeling aloft, birds beckoning cry.

Crossing still watered Norfolk Broads

firm stroking and heaving on rowlocked oars

he rests to pause.

Ripples whisper to lap the lake’s shore,

where St Peter makes ready to haul anchor.

Set sea anchors to harbour from storm,

hold fast like a barnacle sticks to rock.

Ride the waves, surf the shock

prevent the ship from being shorn

from its surfaced moorings torn.

Where now, dark deep below,

the whirlpools and the eddies swirl,

pushing the keel in movements slow,

away beyond horizons go.

We might look back in shock to see,

in all fair weathered mediocrity

those paths shaped by necessity,

decisions without determining course.

 Hauling sail without remorse,

drifting the familiar far astern

swells the sea in soft patterns.

In the wash, the bonds of the past.

Everything we supposed would last

lie scattered around the beached craft.

St Christopher with his staff now beckons,

where chronometer silent ticks the seconds.