Shipwreck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

(Image taken from the Internet)

The sight of an old wreck  is enough to stir even the the least fertile imagination as we listen out for the cries and shouts of its crew and the inner eye alights on their frantic efforts to save the vessel before abandoning it to try and save themselves ... a feeling for ghosts, captured in various art forms inviting us to engage with both history and an enduring posthumous consciousness.

SHIPWRECK

Looming in an autumnal mist

as if out of nowhere…

a wreck once on its way,

who knows where

or why, even cares any more,

so many years gone by, tales told,

reworked, and told again?

Mildly protesting waves cradling

the cadaver like a family

anxious to save one of its own

any greater grief

from a lively imagination weaving

a tapestry of let’s-pretend memories

among various art forms

Dead wood, live spirit, ever ripe

for pickings by the inner eye

on the alert for choice moments

from nature’s archives;

likewise, an ear no less sensitive

to echoes of a past crowding senses,

reclaiming its voices…

Mist thickening, wreck vanishing

from view as if dying another

of a thousand deaths lent its tragedy

at the moment of its drowning

by such guardian ghosts as allow

mind-body-spirit permanent access

to nature and human nature

Copyright R. N. Taber