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. 

Great and Small

You “think yourself a great man

Because you live in a little world.”

Better it is, I think,

To be a small man

In a wide world,

To see your gaze stretch far and sink

Inside the wonders in the depths of every night,

The magic in each word the poets write.

And even better yet, perhaps,

To be a right-sized man

In a right-sized world,

To find your place

And fill that sacred space

With great reserves of love, and then collapse

The borders of your heart until

Each little grain of living wraps

A world within itself, where atoms spill

Upon your soul

And make the wider world whole.

I read a Samuel Butler's translation of The Odyssey last month, and the quote at the beginning of this poem is from near the end of that work. It's a phrase that struck me as I read it, and this poem is simply my effort to think about it a little bit.

The Sculptor and the Sculpture

“If I may,

I’d like to shape you out of clay,”

Said the sculptor to the sculpture

As his hands began to play.

The art was yet unrealized,

But the artist had devised

His plan to bring the thought to life –

Then, suddenly, he improvised.

He introduced an imperfection,

Removed a fairly central section,

Then covered up the hollowed hole,

Invisible to eye’s inspection.

Some magic in the sculptor’s mind

Gave breath, and atoms realigned

To live, as all creation paused,

For here was something new defined.

It felt the air expand its chest.

At first it seemed content to rest,

But then it yearned for something more

And started on its endless quest.

Was it correct, this sculptor’s ploy

To make the sculpture search for joy

Outside itself? It’s led to greed

And wars from Gettysburg to Troy.

But there are times in life’s great trial

When what is lacking turns the dial

And spurs us to create a better world.

It’s then we see the sculptor smile,

For, though it’s difficult to fathom,

The sculptor named the sculpture Adam.


This is a fourth poem in a series about beginnings. It takes some creative license and re-imagines the Biblical story of humanity's origin, in light of some of our failings and our better parts.

New Days, Old Truths

We feel we’ve come so far

Throughout the past two thousand years

(So brief within the lifetime of a star).

We say we’ve fashioned shovels out of spears.

Our flags now fly on mountaintops

And lunar surfaces to spar

With cosmic rays, while earthly fields of crops

Feed billions through their days. And yet, we scar

Ourselves and all creation

With wounds akin to days before.

Men still seek power, wealth, and elevation

Above their peers, but push aside the poor.

We still pit one against the other

And fight our wars as if

We do not need the sister or the brother

Opposing us across the cratered cliff.

We still need ancient wisdom born

Of truths that hold from elder days.

The sun returns each new-made morn

To grant us all its warming rays.

We still need mercy laced with hope

In things unseen and thoughts unknown

To guide us toward a wider scope

Of love that forms a servant’s throne.


This is a third poem in a series about beginnings. In this case, it's about continuing forward without forgetting the important lessons we've learned since our beginning. We may still make similar mistakes sometimes, but the wisdom of the past may also offer some guidance on how to over come those mistakes.