Nautical Miles…

Water…

I think maybe it saved my life….

Or maybe it was my life…

Or maybe it ended it….

I think I’ve been around the Horn
at least once …

Brief images of standing on deck
watching snow flurries dance
down from the grey sky to land
on the boards

but they don’t melt away
And the rigging and the hawsers
are blocks of ice

We’ve been trying to
get the canvas stowed
But our fingers won’t work
takes all our strength to
climb into the yards

There’s been a 30 knot
steady wind in my face
for the last few hours
and my beard feels like wires
The gale’s icy fingers snake down through
what clothes I could bundle around Me

I can’t feel my feet anymore
it’s like I’m walking around
on wooden stumps
every step on the deck is
a precarious journey

The pitch and roll of the brine
tips us up on end
I slid against the rail hard
knocking the wind from
my lungs
as I’m laid out flat

We take a massive whitecap
abeam
The ship lists so hard
the mainmast almost dips
below the horizon

lifelines are our only
hope
As the keel rights us topside
men are flung from the yards
like apples from a tree
in a hurricane

We can see the wave coming
7 stories tall and baring down
on our port side
The captain screams for help
as He tries to turn the wheel
The helm is frozen solid

I throw my back into it
As we try to break it free
We have to turn Her bow into the wave…
but with the canvas down
and the rigging frozen
She answers too slowly

I remember the blue-green shadow
of the wall of water
on the deck boards
and then the hand of Oceanus
Sweeping Me from my feet

My arms and legs are on fire
every part of my body is
instantly burned by the
frozen water around me

Between the troughs of the
waves
I can see the hull of the ship
and Her keel is pointed at the sky

I try to take air into my lungs
but my body won’t respond
my breath comes
in rapid, stuttering, gasps
as the salt crisps upon my face

My final memory
as the water closes over my head
is how I will never get to see
the topaz expanse of the Islands
and feel my feet
buried in the black Tahitian Sand
ever again…