Sport 32: Summer 2004
Appointed Limits
Appointed Limits
Uncle Donald, becalmed
in the Lesser Antilles
will tell his nephews
a story in which nothing
much happens beyond
discussion of a trip
from New Orleans to St Louis
by steam boat which once took
three weeks and was recently
accomplished in three days,
and the possibility of the ship
as floating home with
balustrades and ornamentation
befitting a palace.
One day there were clouds
like birds on the horizon,
the next a shoe, a couple of shoes
then a cobbler and so on
which, together with
volcanic rocks to port,
and starboard, and port again,
and the occasional expedition
to shore to buy tobacco from farmers
and booty from smugglers,
should help pass the hour
pleasantly enough.
He'll forgo the storm
when he clung to the mast
with the legs of a horse,
swallowing water,
and the moment of near sinking
when the bosun promised
omelets for breakfast,
and the captain,
straddling the bridge,
held his telescope like a rifle.