To set sail. <br />You will need a compass, <br />A good sense of direction, <br />Sea legs and a thirst for adventure, <br />Searching for Sirens by celestial navigation. <br /> <br />Once adrift, <br />Ropes coiled against the sun, weather darkens. <br />The foghorn mourns in a language you don’t speak. <br />Warning in a voice you do not recognize, while a song <br />Beckons you to surge toward the rocks you cannot see. <br /> <br />There she is, <br />Stars on her belly. <br />Sailor girl, do you see her? <br />Wrestling with the mermaids in the kelp forest, <br />Her tattoos vivid, shimmering in the aqua blue. <br /> <br />Swim. <br />The sea awaits. You quiver. <br />Behind you ropes and rigging rock, <br />The rudder shifts, jettisoning you from the gunwale <br />Flinging you from the bowsprit into the eye of the wind. <br /> <br />You wonder <br />Whose stars are those who’ve caught you? <br />The sea has swallowed the moon and tossed you. <br />From blackness into a sparkling galaxy of seaglass. <br />Is this the wake or the wind that carries you? <br /> <br />Catch me - <br />She teases, her tangled mane just out of reach, <br />Oh, how your compass rose has betrayed you! <br />Your bearings will return, she laughs, someday, <br />If you can sail, then surely you can fly.<br /><br />Jennifer Wildman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/flirting-with-the-sea/
