Call me “Driftwood.”
I’ve been all around the world,
offering my flesh as a sacrifice
to the highest bidder—
a loved-starved sinner—
stretching my skin
and my limbs and my sins
till their breaking point
to fashion a sunburned sail—
a jib unlike any other headsail—
pulled up high-and-tight
by my lustful entrails.
I am the captain and the captain is me.
The captain is the ship
and the ship is sinking.
Ergo, I am sinking.
No longer thinking, except to say,
“Why endure the pain of running away?
I think I’ll blame the wind
with its elfin features and impish grin.
Look vigilantly and you’ll see
bits-and-pieces of an armada
stuck in its teeth.
Yes, the whimsical wind made me do it,
seducing me to live by abased emotions
like the Greek prophet Zorba—
that innocence-stealing thief.
A gale that notoriously dashes
fleets against reefs
doesn’t stop at a knock
but kicks the door in
blowing its pirate breath into my sail,
picking me up over its green head
with seaweed for cobwebs,
and smashes me against jagged rocks.
Sirens of serendipity
sing a sweet dirge at my final hour.
Down I go,
deeper,
deeper
into the Abyss,
passing all the sunken schooners
I stole from
when I was young and hungry for power—
ships with no anchor in the eye of the storm.
The myth is true—
the God of the Ocean saved me.
From the deep He grabbed me.
I became born-again.
His hand—
a topographical map of turquoise rivers
with diabase boulders for knuckles
and fingers of wood, earth and stone
for jetties
(a memory of monergistic salvation at sea)—
threw me a line and pulled me up
by His entrails to resuscitate me.
Who is this aqua-marine deity?
The Hand of the Ocean is He,
bitten and scarred and pierced by our jaws.
The sharks are hungry
and the fish are outnumbered.
There’s divine blood in the water—
a symbol of Love from a forgiving Fater.
But as Frost likes to say,
“Nothing gold can stay.”
A priori truth became my higher power.
Not truth and beauty
or truth and love
or truth and experience
but answers to questions
that made me feel alive,
swinging to the pious side
of life’s pendulum
leaving behind the savage truth
to The Lord of the Flies …
or so I thought.
Arid logic and apologetics
I worshiped at the shrine of my intellect.
Then came the humbling blow—
to my chagrin I never learned
to breathe underwater,
probably because I was so proud
to be walking on water.
I went from cultures and cuisines
and a boat-load of Aphrodites
with low self-esteem in-between
(let’s call it “Tarshish”)
to answers about the existence of God,
the meaning of life
and the creation of the cosmos
(let’s call it “Mars Hill”)
to being still
(let’s call it “Home”),
the kind of stillness that’s happy
being driftwood—
able to stay afloat of life’s perils—
in the presence of divinity
not negotiating
but breathing in the Scriptures,
seeing a kaleidoscope of colors
and nautical pictures
(in my head)
of the depth the Hand of the Ocean plunges
to save a sunken sinner
and his wounded ego—
an earthly treasure
with redemptive properties
stashed securely within
the Captain’s cargo.