I’m writing this letter to you.
To explain the distress, I’ve been through.
I’ve been stranded at sea for some time.
Underneath a sweltering sun and sky so blue.
A few weeks have passed.
Since the storm came and broke our mast.
Fear gripped me when I saw it fall below.
Terror overcame me with a call to “Avast!”
The storm raged with a yowl.
I had seen some flee from the vessel afoul.
The ship now tossed and broke in two.
Death embraced us with a darkened scowl.
I fell away from my safety.
From a vessel that for years helped shape me.
I had poured all my soul into this craft.
But now saw it succumb to waves and frailty.
I was dragged beneath the undertow.
Struggling out for both wind and blow.
My arms flailed and reached for the sky.
The reaper had come with his care to bestow.
When all hope inside was lost.
A piece of my ship by waves was tossed.
So close to me did this plank approach.
Ambition took hold and despair would defrost.
I grasped this wood and cried.
So much was wasted, so much had died.
I drifted at sea the rest of the night.
Hoping I would drown and fade out of sight.
Morning came again but with pain.
I hadn’t departed, everything stayed the same.
The chasm where my heart was only grew deeper.
No words could soothe, no love could tame.
My tongue had no drop tasted.
But when rain fell, not a trickle was wasted.
Food was scarcely found in the deep below.
Yet sorrow be, with my plank I felt elated.
This piece of wood so divine.
Carried me through darkness, to sunshine.
It carried me through waters filled with prey.
It gave me strength when life bellowed to resign.
I have inscribed on this wood.
All my story, with nothing left to be misunderstood.
This wood fragmented from the whole.
Had brought me back from horrors withstood.
Now I stand near a gull.
Far away from that distant skull.
A ship rebuilt to something fresh and new.
The plank I embraced, now my center, my hull.