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Tag: sea

Indra’s Neti-Neti: chantey (shanty)

We sail the sea that has no shore,
with just a raft beneath us;
we float until we can no more
and our resources fail us.
We find the wind and let it blow
whichever way it takes us,
without a chart or star above
we journey ’til it breaks us.
We make no claim to know the way,
nor where this life will lead us.
We work our sinews to the bone;
the sea air thins and bleeds us.
We are a wild and wooly crew,
no nation claims or wants us;
we know no home or fatherland –
no distant hamlet haunts us.
We sail because for all we know
the ocean lives inside us.
We keep a steady, weather eye
on where the fog may hide us.
We stand together on the deck
where time and tide defy us,
and with each turn and rolling wave,
we let ourselves be righted.

29 APR 2025

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Sailing to the Islands: rubai / rubaiyat

Across the western sea the islands gleam
like jeweled notes that play, or so it seems,
a wild and rugged song, steeped in romance
and stories that delight the night with dreams.

The winds, when they are willing, swirl in dance
in steps not of America, or France,
but in a strange and sensual caprice;
they tempt the stranger to but take a chance.

The clouds above lay soft as down, or fleece,
and slowly billow as their grays increase,
’til full of rain and summer’s violent storms,
they empty out their content in release.

The long horizon stretches far ahead
across the line of sight like a pale thread,
and seems almost a never-ending band
that ties the rolling waves to the sky-bed.

At dawn and dusk, the edges of the land
seem to forget which part is foam or sand,
and blur into a gray and purple stream
that mixes light and dark along the strand.

15 MAY 2017

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