The exercise:
Write something which takes place: at sea.
Max has spent a large portion of the day asleep. I'm hoping he's just recovering from the unpleasantness of yesterday and that he'll be back to his usual form tomorrow.
Although, to be totally honest, I wouldn't mind too much if he slept this much every day. We managed to get a fair amount done around here!
Mine:
We'd been at sea for twenty weeks,
Our supplies were running low.
The wind was deader than a ghost,
Our men were too weak to row.
The captain was looking nervous,
His faith in his crew long gone.
I'll admit that night I was sure
He'd not live to see the dawn.
I think we all made that mistake,
We failed to give him his due;
For under cover of darkness
He took to the ocean blue.
The last we saw of our captain
He was bound for the horizon;
We could nearly hear him laughing
As he waved, astride a dolphin.
3 comments:
Heh, I doubt you'll get that much sleep from Max every day! But it is nice to dream... ;-)
Snow is promised here today, and over the weekend too, so it's finally starting to feel wintry. The temperature might even fall to -8 if we're lucky!
I thought there was going to be a mutiny when I started reading your poem, but by the end I was both pleasantly surprised and smiling broadly at the idea of the Captain departing via dolphin. Neat idea!
At sea
"Who is the Captain of this ship, please?"
"Ah, that would be Billy Bones."
"And who are you then?"
"Bobby Shaftoe. First poet and Captain's mate."
"...do ships usually have First poet positions?"
"The Pink Daffodil does. Captain Bones created the position himself."
"I see. No, no actually I don't see, but this conversation is reminding me far too much of the time a bank was robbed and I interviewed an attractive young woman with red hair who was doing the Macarena at the time of the robbery."
"Why have you boarded our ship then? The Captain will want to know, and he's been drinking since we set sail."
"You're double-parked."
"Double-parked? At sea?"
"Yes. Yes, well... new maritime laws. Quite possibly made by a certain red-head...."
glad Max is doing well!
At Sea (dwp)
I decided to try a different tack one morning. Instead of walking there, I would throw my bathing suit and towel into the boot of the car and drive to a swimming beach further around the coast. It proved to be a good move. The water was calmer, old waves having long since carved a bay out between a remnant of rock and a man-made jetty.
At high tide it formed the perfect swimming hole.
It wasn’t busy, it being not quite holiday season. One or two ladies braved the early morning ocean swell, their husbands dutifully sitting nearby, preferring to tackle the wind-blown leaves of the morning paper to the white-topped curls of a high tide surf.
One lady pounded past me in a smooth free-style that cut each wave like a hot knife through butter. The swimmer’s cap covering her hair told me she was a serious sports person whereas I was just a leisure swimmer.
I kept out of her way.
Another lady waved to her and shared a quick word before duck-diving under the next wave. It was her turquoise suit that caught my eye. It’s my favourite colour.
She smiled at me when she surfaced and I couldn’t help but smile back. She had eyes that matched her suit. I swam a little then got closer as the current pulled me hither and thither. We struck up a conversation beginning, inevitably, with the weather, which happened to be perfect. It’s always a good ice-breaker, the weather. It stops a reticent person like me from being all at sea when it comes to public relations. My childhood shyness got firmly stuffed back into its closet space; I wasn’t letting it out for a run today.
We chatted and swam and then, when we got cold, it was time to towel down. Fortunately, fate saw to it that there were shells on the beach. We both bent down to pick some up. Turned out we were both avid shell collectors. It seemed natural to compare and share and swap, to make our collections complete.
I said my ’good day’ to her and left for home.
A few days later I decided to drive there again. I newrly stopped at a different beach but parking was tricky so I opted to return to the little bay.
The shell collector was there again, busying herself with a colourful collection of varying sizes and shapes. “There’re are jellyfish in the water today,” she warned. It seemed safer to stay dry and add to my growing collection. I was low on supplies at home anyhow.
We got to talking. I ventured my details and we promised to have coffee sometime. Why not? Sometimes you have to take a chance.
We did do coffee, many times. It is great fun! So much in common! So many interests and experiences to share! What a gem.
You never, ever know when a new friend might grace your life like a surprise pearl inside an oyster shell.
How lucky we are.
Greg - thanks! I wanted to avoid the mutiny route, as it seemed too obvious. Glad you liked the twist :)
Oh my. I can just imagine our favorite redhead on the Pink Daffodil :D
Writebite - thank you, us too :)
What a lovely, positively uplifting story. Thank you for sharing it with us!
Post a Comment