Sea Change Poem by Gene van Troyer

In shipness absolute,
the old whaler ashore and sealess
deckroll-walks the stable dock
to the fence-edge,
stares into the stilly dark of low tide.
His thoughts are a sailly windiness
and, low to the whalable waters,
the foamsplash and sparclatter
of remembrance, fall home.
This life is chanceless. There,
in memory’s sea, the corded trajectory
of charge-thrown harpoons, whaled,
the doried slickered sailors riding the froth
near the death-thrash, the soon
resistless mammoth; that
was the livingest way. But here, now,
workless pensioner oceanable but in dreams,
sea-blood churning wakely in his veins,
the old man idles away
until fogly swallowed the harbor lights
wink out one by one.