Ink Tea Stone Leaf

You see the ship upon the sea that sinks,

A forsaken ship, following the wind,
a creaking hulk of artifacts all bound
together by the living memories
of the sun-burnt sailors, who scrape the hull
for salt and seaweed, flotsam, jetsam, fish,
and all necessities of life they find
in transit, crossing each meridian
and parallel that lines a drop of blue
suspended in infinities of black time,
a piercing tropic noon competing for
distinction with a total arctic night;

You see the ship beneath the sea that falls,

A generation ship, the largest seen
upon the sinking sea, her planks assembled
hastily from wrecks encountered all
along her course, her masts derived from trees
that parted streams of cloud when they were tall
and disappeared beneath the last horizon
long years ago, her expansive sails
repaired by sewing great colored patches
of bleached cloth on holes as chance allows,
and oars kept in the holds should salvage fail
and children must be taught to row again;

You see the ship upon the sea that sinks,

A busy ship, a population speaking
tongues that don’t distinguish industry
from piracy, as all humanity
inhabits her and all is treasure-trove,
and no accounts are kept for what arises
from deep water, no accounts for what
descends heavy from colossal streams
that flow as dreams about the falling sea,
and every scrap of floating garbage snatched
in nets is evidence of infinite
potential resting in the human mind;

You see the ship beneath the sea that falls,

A ghost ship, in the swells illuminated
yellow underneath the falling sea,
her nets and sails dismembered, oars
discarded, victim of a short debate
between the party that would sail between
the seas for ever, drinking the cold rain
that gathers under mounting sheets of cloud,
and those determined parties who would force
the issue of the long forgotten land,
who sabotaged the ship, and so compelled
her last crew to an end of wandering;

You see the ship beneath the sea that sinks,

A derelict, a whale fall in the first
domain of loss, irrelevant to light
for having reconnected with the land,
for having reached the only harbor known
in all the voyages of time, for touching
bottom and, with all the force behind
her groaning mass, endeavoring to burrow
a few meters deeper, draw the sand
the length of her dull eyes and be forgetful,
last among the things that could forget,
the final unrecovered treasure-trove.