Sailor’s Delight, a poem
Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock
Saturday, October 2, 2004.
Sailor’s Delight
©2004 Ben S. Pollock
I am no Pollyanna, or maybe I am.
I’m not trying to see good even in the worst.
Yet my standards are softer. After all
I don’t want to be in that bad state again.
— at least not without cause.
So I’m at my new job now six months,
but this starts weeks ago. I’m working swing,
the four-to-midnight shift. Why I thought I’d
left those days … well, nights … 15 years ago …
Anyway, I look up from my desk toward
the dimming door (Old habits never die, damned
if they don’t adapt and follow). Through the glass
I see the western sun as the horizon pulls it
— down: "Come here, sailor."
Well, this would be one terrific sunset
but I’m at work. The sky’s great, it’s me
who’s restless. So I move toward that door:
Why not take a break? not for smokes but for eyes.
The horizon isn’t prairie or the Pacific; it’s a low
long building. Above, long low clouds stretching
from power pole to power pole, cut by the roof.
The red sun lies behind, while above and around
— an otherwise clear sky. My mind clears.
The air low is whitish and as seconds, just seconds, pass
and my eyes go up, it gradates to ash then blue then ink
like a Bill Flanagan cemetery background. But not a picture.
It’s as real as that piercing half-moon over the Conoco yonder.
It’s as real as my life. I’ll take any sunset now
even if it’s a sunset over Sam’s Wholesale Club.
Could kick myself for the years as a sunset snob,
for not abandoning the glow box and its keyboard.
— Come on, it’s just five minutes.
This started weeks ago. I move at 9 or 8 or 7.
Now, the smokers know to follow my eye.
Sunset over Sam’s isn’t Malibu on sight,
but I claim this sky just about every night.
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