Days Spent Sailing on the Sea

Day one

Was met by rising sun,

And worries were so very few –

An easy course to run.

Day two,

The storm came into view.

Too large to turn the boat and flee,

I started plunging through.

Day three

Was hardest yet for me.

I lost all sight of any shore

While rain was falling free.

Day four,

The waves were rising more,

And, every crest, the boat would strive

To shun perdition’s door.

Day five,

I’d kept myself alive.

The storm had passed, but, with that fix,

More struggles would derive.

Day six

Brought sunlight, playing tricks.

I’d lost my course through earth and heaven,

In storm wind’s swirling mix.

Day seven

Passed through to day eleven,

When, in a daze, I spotted land

And found the strength to stand.

Those days spent sailing on the sea

Diverged from what I thought they’d be,

But now I try, upon the sand,

To learn the truths revealed to me.

This poem was essentially just a simple experiment, to see how far I could get while using an extremely strict rhyming structure based on numbers. In some cases, imposing more restrictions on yourself might lead to greater creativity. I actually made it farther than I thought I would, but I eventually found myself diverting from the structure a bit near the end.