by Edgar L. McCormick

HISTORIC NANTUCKET

III Becalmed

Day after day we wait, alone, Confronted by ourselves and time That smothers us, "the sea around, The sky above, and nothing else". We curse the tryworks that the sun Contrives, and hate the stars that hang, Immobile lanterns, in the stays. Pariahs from the bounty we Assumed when we were heading out, We drift, no longer sure that somewhere Off the bow, the winds survive, Or landfalls that knew that we knew persist.

IV Homeward Bound

Tired and old in paradise, More tattered than our charts, we dread Familiar gales and waterspouts, Leviathans and coral reefs. The lookouts now imagine moors And lanes upon the endlessness, And Sherburne's spires, mirages in The mist, shame all the landfalls we Have seen.

The hunt is done. We turn About, short by a thousand barrels, And beat a course for home, to meet Ourselves, young strangers, heading out.

Edgar L. McCormick Kent, Ohio