Undefeated, a Boxing Lesson

UndefeaTed. A Boxing Lesson. A friend, off the Vineyard, wrighted a ship. And, perhaps himself, and certainly the worlds ‘round him. His words were fashioned, shipshape and watertight as were the splines and bungholes and rudder pins and All the Things I didn’t know what they were. All the Things I didn’t know what they meant. All the Things unrevealed. To me. All the things shown to me but which remained unrevealed. To me. All the things said to me. All the things writ to the world. All the world is changing. Only the oceany world has the courtesy to plainly reveal her shifting, her changings. Over and over. The shiftless soil world hides its change in the vault of Time. The tides are honesty. The currents are candor. The waves~ credulous and scrupulous. And voluptuous. In form. In energy. In shape. In fact. The world. A friend, off the Vineyard built an autobiograph. And set it afloat. Asea. It’s got a name. It floats. It’s accreted a following. Shorebirds, turned beakward, into the setting sun. The sun we all face. The one which presages darksun days. And eternal nights. Starless nights. “The Seeker.” I’m sure, if asked, he’d say that there are many Seekers the boat is named after. I’m sure he’d say that to Seek is to move, to leave wake, to summon the winds of change and to ride them. I’m sure he’d say that we are all, in our ways, Seekers. I am sure that he’d say that to Seek is to be Happily unhappy with This and thus press on unceasingly, unflaggingly, inerrantly, inviolably, to That. Unbowed spirit to bowsprit. Capstan to Captain. There are meant to be more dreams than dreamers. I fear there are more dreams than dreamers. There was meant to be one Dream among many dreams given birth by, given flight by, given surging urgency by One Dreamer. Pintles. Copper rivets. Bobstays ‘n stuffing box. Caulking. Dynel. Gudgeons. Hatches and hatchets. Cypress. White Oak. P i n e . Oakum. Cotton. A friend, off the Vineyard Built an autobiograph. I don’t know from boats. I don't even have the decency to rightly remember the Stories he earned on docks, on shiprails, amidships, out where stories grow larger than storytellers, out where the sea is as deep as the sky. I don’t see how it matters if your vessel flounders. I don’t see how it matters if your vessel founders. I know that even dreamers who are flotsam until the ocean jettisons them from deck and jets ‘em to seafloor can be guidelights to those in the same wind, caught up in the same current, channeling their inner sailor, in their way, dry-footedly from the dry green Edge of Freedom. If you press on, chart and re-chart your course... I don't see how it matters where you end up. It is How you end up which matters. Which is how you loosed the ropes. Underway and on your way. How you end up is the lesson for those who follow in your trackless blue path. I know that a Lighthouse and a Northstar are each Necessary Lights to those lost or under way under the dark spell of a salty night. One wards off, one beckons; they each guide. Here. Not here. Both waymaking for Seekers.