WOW! I knew a lot of this blog’s readers liked my photos but I was not prepared for the reaction to moving pictures. Thank you. So, you really liked the film clip! Guess what? I’ll start inserting more. I’ve always wanted to learn how to edit, cut, and splice films as well as dub-in music, narrative, titles and so forth. I will learn. For the moment you’ll have to endure raw, unedited film shorts but I’m working on improving. We’ve got a good thing going on. Here’s one I shot this morning.
The feedback from readers about selling old ‘Seafire’ is almost divided equally. Some say, “Yeah, you’re right, cut yourself away from the stuff.” Others say, “Wot! Swallow the anchor?” Not you old chap. That’d be totally daft. How can you be Fred without a boat.” I am torn. This afternoon, I went down to the boat as usual to do a little tidying and cleaning and eventually ended up in one of the bunks for a nap. With two sleeping cabins I do have a way of producing a little income from chartering. I have forgotten this is one reason I bought this particular vessel. I drifted off to sleep during a spring squall and awoke later to find it was still pounding rain on the cabin top. The wind moaned in the rigging and I felt a deep sense of well being. The old chubby chap snug in his big fibreglass egg. I contemplated giving up my deep passion for flying and spending thirty-five years refitting and selling boats until I’ve ended up in this, my eighth boat. What all have I sacrificed for this? What has my wife endured and sacrificed for my dreams? Can I really walk away from this huge investment and be content and feel fulfilled? The happiest time of my life, as I recall, was when I only owned a backpack. Stuff, bloody stuff.
I’m posting an old standard poem which I wrote many years old. ‘The Water Rushing By’ is also the title of my first published collection of writing about being a mariner on the waters of the Pacific Northwest. I need to get another run printed. Perhaps this one piece says everything worth saying. There is another short video at the end.
The Water Rushing By
Oh accursed dreamer who is called sailor
you cannot explain the longing
that leaves you restless for open ocean
out of sight of land
and those who would love you.
You are compelled eternally
to seek the solitudes of the undulating plane
that separates the heaven and the abyss
and you cannot feel complete without
the water rushing by.
Perhaps it is a lifepulse that calls you
a beating like the fetal heart throb
that sustained you in the warmth
and liquid of your mothers womb
now rising, then falling
caressing all around you
the harmony of hull in water
you surround yourself again in embryonic shelter
safe from all that would harm you
protected by the rhythm
of the water rushing by.
You go there beyond reason
of land bound men
so that again you may seek
the sight of yet another shore
from the only place remaining on the planet
where the world is seen almost as it always was.
There upon the tumbling mirth
of unchanged ever changing ocean
alone under ancient blue light
of beckoning stars and lonely distant worlds
receiving radiations of timeless wisdom
infinite love, endless yearning
of the universe eternal
and all the atoms of
the water rushing by.
Your life is become like your vessel
fusions of unlikely substance
that were in the earth, or grew upon it
joined together in brutal process
burning, bending, grinding cutting, pounding, poisoning.
Complex angles curving outward
inward, up and down
vertical, horizontal all at once
incongruous, inspired joinery
to craft a device of grace and beauty
for function, purpose, yet unplanned journeys
containing the conundrumed equation
of ballast against volume
to prevent capsize and stay floating outward
away from the now alien land where it was born
A convoluted, easy, tensioned balance
and buoyant synergy.
Yet no sum of parts will ever matter
so long as there ever is the simple music
of the water rushing by.
Man and vessel married
a happy oneness
dancing to the callings
of the sea bitch goddess.
Caressing her face and writhing body
with never ending, soon unmarked passage
of foaming wake across
the heaving breasts and belly
you are unable to abandon
the addictions of your passion.
Oh accursed sailor ever lusting
for just another moment, lonely then fulfilled
with peace and terror
lostness and homecoming
and the potent pleasure
of the water rushing by.
“Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” …Voltaire