Hardly a slither in the half-light
yet still gleaming
as if to restore our faith

in shackle and shank, mast
and boom
No harm to look and linger at her pale sickle
in the nautical twilight

So full of kinship as she wrings her hands
for yesterday’s dead
edifying lovers and dreamers

Her rhythms of renewal
offering hope
for those who we still revere

Now resurrecting seadog and smuggler
on his return to port
aloft in the wind manning the yards

Moon and mariner
suspended mid-sail like the embers of stars
lambent in the pellucid dawn