Flock of Boats

FLOCK OF BOATS Who hasn’t watched boats bobbing in the shallows Restlessly pulling at their slack tethers in the softly breaking waves? They are live things with souls that stretch out to the horizon, And feel happiest with the splash of deep saltwater against their cheeks. Their boards shrink with dry sun and shelter, paint peels, For they need to swell their flesh in life-giving pitch and roll And fill their sails with hopeful energy, their tillers leaning hard Against the tide, and ropes taut as bowstrings, heading home, Arrow-straight, as geese in a late autumn sky, before sunset.