February 12, 2002

Merrily Merrily

By George K. George

I awoke in a sickness, my torn pant legs drenched

Up from the hull I shot, what was that stench?

An oar was missing, recollection in the same boat

A swamp surrounded, I'm lucky to be afloat

I knew I must think and fit the pieces together

As mariners before, I looked to the water

A swimming face with no name, she had worn no scent

And if, was now quite muted by strong discontent

Twirling dazed in the current I was for some time

Sliding through slime deeper into the pines

Nettles and insects, flowers of poison

This was not the course I had plotted and chosen

I stood oar in hand, dampened map now unfolding

Time to look where just the hell I was going

Checked with the compass, one of two options

I chose to see through this Mercator distortion

A quiet, tacking wake was all I left in the swamp

Starboard to port with only one oar to flaunt

Stagnant belching, buzzing festering grew faint

A stream of swirling eddies lay beyond the gates

Wrestling over torrents, I saw my trouble's cause

Hanging up my gondola were fundamental laws

These rocks would never rise to float upstream

Stuck too tight in mud for those kinds of dreams

Chuckle did I for some time on a river-rock's sense

Having delusions of travel and a passive resistance

Who could grow fond of such stubborn jerks

Surely only dry flowers growing in dehydrated dirt

Raging rapids far behind now, I heard a bright new roar

Growing deeper and fuller, I pulled up my oar

Glided past weeping willows, and up around the bend

I came to the white wall marked my hard journey's end

Up I gazed at the sparkling sheet of falling river

I recalled the spray's scent, and I shivered

At impasse for even a light aluminum vessel

I cast out my oar, and it slid 'neath the ripples

I steadied the boat, and the blue pool beckoned

I leapt to the bow as figurehead for one half-second

Clear as the stones beneath, nevermore would I flounder

I became a rock, and sank deep into still water