Cruise Lines

We booked passage on a liner
to take us from a crib
and towards an isle
where legends claimed happiness flowed,
which might somehow
halt the curse of time’s withering spell
over our flesh and our minds.

Everyone knew the risks,
they had been warned about
by the marine prophets of old,
pirates, Tsunamis or some unknown flaw in the ship
might end our sail so suddenly.

Still the need inside
had power over our fears
so we set sailed and suppressed our anxieties,
none of us aware if our fellow passengers
were criminals or ministers,
simply aware all were headed on the same voyage
sharing the sea and all its challenges.

On one dark night the pirates came
they tortured some and imprisoned all,
but in the chaos no one noticed
how an iceberg loomed in the distance,
feeling so odd when we missed its doom
because we were under the rule
of vicious, immoral men.

Then a violent storm occurred
before us suddenly appeared a tidal wave,
making us aware no matter our loves or hearts
all would face the similar fate
once it struck the ship.

In the mind a thousand questions flooded
seconds before the giant swell arrived,
none of the ponderings were ones we could answer,
yet someone appreciating in morbid resignation
nature’s rage was blind
about what dwelled in any soul,
it just obeyed its primal force
with every story of each life,
whether it was good or bad,
sunken under its watery hand.