Ashore

Remembering
the day the ship finally
came into port.

Wicked cold –
so windy too, that morning –
needed an overcoat,	
a scarf.

The only clouds in the blue
blue sky the
wispy, feathery ones
joy-riding the jet
stream.

Leaned against the taffrail
along the stern gallery –
watching all the passengers
queue up 
to disembark.

I should join them -
I should make my way down,
I think.
Soon enough, once the crowd
thins out, no reason
to crowd in amongst all
that humanity, I think.
Sure, it’s not a race,
I think, and
I stand and I stand	
and think.

A way’s off, I see
the city jabbing at the sky –
asserting itself with
a hundred skyscrapers
all billowing steam like smoke,
like dragon’s breath.

It seems far,
and full of promises,
and alien.

The decks gently roll
beneath my feet,
barely noticed after so
many weeks at sea.

A steward passes me, and I smell
the coffee on his tray,
which smells so different
close to shore, where the
salt air is never up
and the world feels
so small.

I should disembark –
I should do it, 
should go ashore,
I think.

What adventure waits, I wonder,
amongst the concrete-steel
towers and the thronging
sidewalks, subways and 
throughways?

What fortunes
wait to be won?
What love stories
wait to be written?

Abstracted,
absent, absorbed in 
notions and fantasies,
thoughts aswirl –

I hardly noticed as the
ship gently pushed away from
the pier.

And I hardly cared
when I realized I’d missed 
my last chance to ever
reach the shore.