Ballad on the Western Beaches

The ship settles on the shore
and land birds nest on its mast.
With the compass I trace routes on maps of tillage,
hurt by the sky’s anger on the seed’s weak ribs,
fearful of the flower’s drift before inhumane winds.
The ship sleeps on the shore,
the keel’s blue imagination covered in brush and rushes,
and the figurehead has a strolling soul.
In the binnacle is kept the book of moons and the rains’ needle,
a bottle of old snow liqueur.
A skylark sings on a rusty harpoon,
a blackbird’s sigh lashes the cables
and crows on the rudder glimpse lesser death lying alongside.
All set, admiral, for the great journey.