Growing Old Is A Shipwreck In Slow Motion

Shipwreck - Ivan Aivazovsky, 1854

 

Growing old is a shipwreck in slow motion.

   My helm no longer answers to the wheel.

I’m at the mercy of the wind and ocean.

   Decay has made a horror of my keel.

My prow is broken and my sails are tattered.

   The surge threatens to spill me in the drink.

If I should hit a reef, I will be shattered.

   If I try to outrun this storm, I’ll sink.

I look for calm. But there is only one

   That will embrace me when this squall is spent:

The calm after my journeying is done.

   When this old hull’s buried in sediment,

      I’ll take my lifelong promised place below

      And from the great deep to the great deep go. 

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells