Survivor of a hundred storms, brought home in tow,
moored to the outermost buoy, denied dry docking,
I lie condemned by a salvage agent’s ruthless reckoning
to be hauled on shore and broken up. But even so,

my Master yet may come for me, regird my timbering,
recruit a crew of hands, renew my planks and caulking,
reglobe my running lamps, set blazoned sails to my spars;

then shall I ride again on evening’s tide, remembering
how the gale’s song goes, on deck my Master walking,
Commander of the ocean seas, the winds, the stars.

First published in First Things (November 2008)