Helmsman William Lee Poem by Isabel Szurlej

Once a lone ship was shattered off a ghost isle;
her helmsman, William Lee, did not truly drown,
yet he returned neither dead nor living.
For years he wandered, caught between the worlds,
condemned to steer beneath an endless storm.
Some stubborn curse preserved his mortal flesh,
while his soul grinned, nothing but a skeleton.

No mind remembers how he came aboard,
on our brigantine we called Ocean Pearl.
Lee swore he was a seasoned seaman, old,
though none of us had ever heard his name.
His hand upon the helm was steady, sure;
he read the sun and the horizon line,
and traced our course on salt-stained, faded charts.

This human shell, whatever man he was,
sailed east to west with both his eyes held shut,
never once trusting in 'ded—reckoning'.
Still steering north to south proved hard a task,
for helm in command rode that burden slow,
no mate yet breathing could find longitude.

Only immortals know no fear on angry seas.
When tempests rise, the winds will tear your sails
to shreds and hurl you into the towering surge.
Here, between the Devil and the deep sea, death waits;
in the end it always claims its share.

You may beg for mercy,
but the ocean stays proudly merciless.

William Lee knew when the storms were coming,
could gauge their fury and how long they'd last.
He set the vessel's weathered bow to meet
the oncoming waves as we lashed ropes tight,
around our waists with rough spray-bitten rope.
Tons of black water crashed over the prow,
yet the helmsman kept the crew all alive.

It was te'rified and enthralled in a breath,
the way he steered through the dark squalls he named.
Each sailor sensed chill from his secret realm,
then no word slipped from our tightened lips.