Did you set sail on the winds of conviction <br />with a mainsail hoisted high within <br />cutting through the surging crowded waves <br />of salty and deceitful knaves <br />across the many oceans of churning doubts <br />that from the deep kept shouting turn about; <br /> <br />did you fly past determined headlands <br />into the heart of bleakest storms <br />and on their thunder passing <br />give praise for such a calm and peaceful <br />broken light of dawn; <br /> <br />and in that calm that followed <br />quietly watch the clouds go floating past <br />as you settled in the present <br />and left far away behind you <br />all those doubts and storms at last; <br /> <br />did you set a course to follow <br />straight and true to yonder port <br />and then get a thought within you <br />that your course would come to naught; <br /> <br />did you find some alluring misted islands <br />with sirens so softly felt <br />that somehow they beguiled you <br />and off your plotted course <br />you were without resistance sent; <br /> <br />did you find yourself a forlorn shipwreck <br />broken on the rocks of tides' dark despair <br />against high cliffs that climbed so far <br />into the darkness and foreboding <br />that seemed all that there was there; <br /> <br />and as you climbed for freedom <br />did you find that hidden cave <br />that contains all that you had been seeking <br />on that day the wind was in your sails <br />and you thought that all you'd prayed for <br />was found so very, very far away?<br /><br />David Taylor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/plotted-course/
