Sailors ashore watched
With practised foreboding,
As sky glittered threat
Under storm-clouds unfurled.
Smacking-wet raindrops
Attacking ground, dust-dry
Forked lightning revealing
A frightening world.
Thoughts turn to mariners
Battling malevolence
Panting-hot sweat keeping
Riggings in place.
Gulls, like the wind, shrieking
Wildly in concord,
Bent on effacing
The whole human race.
Mutterings and whisperings
Mouthing with pleading
'Neath increasing gale
They had not before seen.
That their Lord abide with them
As fast falls the nightime.
They crouch for deliverance
From the worst ever been.
Fay Slimm
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-those-in-peril/
