Homing, inshore, from far off-soundings. <br />Night coming on. Sails barely full. <br />The wind, <br />in its dying, too light to lift us against <br />the long ebb. <br />My two fingers, light <br />on the tiller, try to believe I feel <br />the turned tide. <br />Hard to tell. Maybe, <br />as new currents pressure the rudder, <br />I come to sense <br />the keel beginning <br />to shape the flow of the sea. Deep <br />and aloft, it's close <br />to dark. <br />No stars yet. Only the risen nightwind, <br />as we tack into its warmth, <br />tells us <br />we'll make our homeport. Strange, <br />angling into the dark, <br />to think <br />how a mainsail's camber reflects <br />the arc of the keel, <br />their dynamics <br />reversing whenever we tack. <br />You call from below, <br />hand up coffee, <br />check the glow of the compass, and <br />raise an eye to Arcturus, <br />just now <br />beginning to shine. All over again, <br />all over, our old bodies <br />breathe <br />the old mysteries: the long night <br />still to go, small bow-waves <br />playing <br />a little nachtmusik; stars beyond stars <br />flooding our inmost eyes. <br />And voices, <br />now, come out of the dark, <br />deeply sounding our own.<br /><br />Philip Booth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/passage-without-rites/
