Voyage

December 7, 2025 - Poet: Shona Allen - Artwork: Triptychs CBC No. 17 by Bruce Bayard

Voyage

Canvas sails unfurled

all along the wharf.

Loaded to the gunwales,

a Clipper put to sea.

We left at break of dawn

before the early light,

out the Port of Osaka

to sail to parts unknown.

Leaving townsfolk

lying in their beds,

we quietly slipped away,

beckoned by the wind.

Dolphins followed in our wake

with raucous gulls aloft.

High above the masts,

the winds began to blow.

An albatross was circling,

a sign of certain doom.

Our ship began to tremble,

to shudder, and to shake.

Struggling with the wheel,

“Avast,” the surly captain roared:

“Batten down the hatches,

and trim them sails in tight.”

The roiling squall arrived

with sheets of freezing rain,

while towering waves rose up

and crashed across the bow.

When suddenly we saw

a pod of humpback whales,

to starboard, and to port,

to guide us through the storm.

Through all the fearful night

and into bright of day,

the guardians of the ocean

kept us all on course.

As thickening fog set in,

we crept along the coast.,

then found, within our sights,

the fabled Oregon.

There, a lighthouse stood

to show us past the rocks

and into a safe harbor,

the refuge that we sought.

And so, despite that woeful albatross,

or the fury of those waves,

what mostly I remember

and still can truly say:

“There’s lots of glory to be found,

When sailing on the seas.”