Saturday morning I awake in my bunk which I soon realize is dripping with condensation. It is winter time on the Northcoast and my boat was built for more southerly latitudes. There are puddles under the mattress and all the efforts I’ve made to insulate and keep a dry bed are in vain. I’ll rip the forepeak apart in the spring and rebuild it but I realize I must move the boat south even before I arise. Enough! Neither of us can endure this sort of winter climate my old bones scream in protest. I’ll sleep in the main cabin for the duration of my tenure here.
I get up, put the kettle on for coffee, wipe thick condensation from the windows and see soggy heaps of hail on the dock. There is snow low-down on the not-so-distant mountains. I can smell it in the air. There was a time when I would have revelled in this on-the-edge living but the romance went out of that a long time ago and I’ve decided being warm and dry has certain acceptable nuances as well.
Coffee made, I check my e-mail and open one from Twisted Sifter which has a video-clip of a pianist playing “Imagine” on the sidewalk in front of a concert hall in Paris, France. It is only then that I learn of the multiple horrific terrorist attacks the night before. At the hour those dark events were unfolding I sat in this boat watching a movie about a Buddhist monk and his novice who live on a floating temple in the middle of a lake. The ironic contrast of that overwhelms me. So I write this:
But There Must Be A Heaven
Ice on the dock,
Dripping, dead, bitter winter.
Now-cold bitter coffee in mug in hand
Hot bitter tears on my face.
I learn the latest news
And hear distant thunder of apocalyptic hooves.
Why do we tear out each other’s hearts
And crap in the wound?
What inspires such fear and self-loathing
to work so hard at destroying our planet,
All hope, all innocence? What rage?
Why are peace and tolerance so difficult?
But there must be a heaven
because surely there is a hell.
The politicos and generals
The god-botherers and holy-talkers
Raise a renewed paranoid clamour
Ever-grasping at the profits of fear
Stirring doubt about any loving god
Confirming the reign of evil.
But there must be a heaven
because surely there is a hell.
I retreat to the darkness of my bed
As yet another storm churns this bay.
Through the wind and rain and slap of waves
I can hear the blare and thump of
Grating desperate tunes from the gala in the pub
As people drink and cavort
And deaden the pain in their soul.
But there must be a heaven
because surely there is a hell.
