Its rusted iron ribs
hint a once proud shape
that now rings a hollow gut
filled and flushed
by tides for the last
ninety years.
Built in Glasgow,
this beached wreck dissolves
slowly in Port Adelaide mud.
My mind builds a ghost
in air, rising up
out of a muddy grave, hull
and deck firm on bones,
masts pushing high
into a bright morning,
open sea and wave
washing along its length
with me on board.
What other could refloat
such a wreck, give buoyancy
to a dream and sail a vision
across the mind's vast ocean.
I am a salvager,
faculty of the divine
to take what time has dissolved
into atoms and make
words into a ship
to sail wherever it has
a will to go, voyager
of the distances between
you and me.
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