“The Atlantan Resting Place”

I sway up on the foremast

In a headlong arch

Unequaled in grace,

Over the edge and down I slip

While wisps on the wind I chase.

My line of departure

So sudden

On the windward side failed

The next moment in time

I saw but the bowsprit,

And splashed

At the swells telling me to stay

With the cold, confusing spray

While only the salty wake I hailed.

In a matter of short seconds

I was bobbing in the quiet fathoms

Of tiny droplets

Uncounted and fused

Since the birth of time's continuum;

The sun and sky

Peacefully peering over me into space,

And the tiny local habitat

Beneath the prismed surface

In their mirrored translucent brine

Queried my place,

Probing my taste;

While the tide bore me under

Into the realm of it’s aqua micro-life

And a lapping blue-green embrace.

I the awkward spectacle

In an endless world at sea,

Mesmerized and stupefied,

Petrified, yet paralyzed,

Floating topsy-turvy.

I then suddenly take comfort

In the soon-to-be release

Of the tiresome, daily toil

And the painful burden of being me.

Now in this peaceful repose

Of the enchanted liquid rainbow

Surrounding the wallowing plunge

Of the depths of my being

To six miles below

I take aim and shoot the sun out

With my last conscience arrow;

Teetering on the edge of forever

With the last release of my bow.

I contemplate my God

With a final injured pride,

And steer a straight course

To oblivion

Yet my heart so little tried.

Maybe if I hold out my hand

I can carry my symbolic weight

And stay this execution,

Cheat my watery fate;

Before I sink

Below the freeboard

Without a human trace

In a spiraling downward motion

To the Atlantan resting place.

wbiro