Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Superior Sailing!

Wednesday night draws sailboats out to Lake Superior and even though the winds were light, the boats cruised through the placid waters of the big lake like a school of fish.

Made me think of this poem by John Masefield:
A Wanderer’s Song

A winds in the heart of me, a fires in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limits of the land,
Where the wild winds old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noise of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I’ll be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I’ll be going going, form the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heel’s.