Three in a Dory
Three in a dory
cross a harbor;
their boats becalm
on taut iron chains.
The entrance bouy,
at breakwall jaws,
sends sound from boulders
to sea to drift in mist
past bows still searching.
Three old men
end a day
after racking a dory
upside down. Over fifty years
apiece of leaving the beach
to retun with fish or crab and tales
to dream like boys asleep ashore
at night with laughlines on their wind
and glare-browned faces, rub salt
into wounds worth having.
An aged man is a paltry thing. A tattered
coat upon a stick, unless his days and wits
stay trim on decks of wood or steel at sea
'til reef nor gale can threaten no more,
and his last footprint in the sand
is claimed by newborn waves.
--Dan Tompsett
(Copywrite 2001)
