Who crafted such words from cottonwood
and embarked on some dreamt-up vessel?
Untied its moorings and weighed anchor,
cast off and sailed upon various notions?
I keep an ear open to those swinging the lamp,
for tidal tales of that cottonwood clipper
with green shimmering sails, bearing swiftly
toward far declinations-no reportage as yet,
only the froth and squall in yon swagger
and brag. Only my fancies hearkening to
memory's steerage, the faint cry of a cabin boy
who'd shimmied high to the crow's nest.
Below cumulous-puffed skies he braced
himself sturdy in the gray-masted sway,
in much the same harbor where I once mused,
nigh his size, on the spars of a cottonwood tree-
where o'er land and sea eyes sail beyond
a mystic horizon where dark fails to follow.
Phillip Michael Sawatzky
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cottonwood-clipper/
