Tossed About

A storm, a ship and a captain

Ship on Stormy Seas, by Ivan Aivazovsky, 1850s

The Tempest

The horizon burns a violent, bitter gold.
Your vision blurs against the solar sting.
I raise my hands to block the blinding cold,
And hold the quiet prayers that shadows bring.

When desperation whispers that you’ve failed,
And clocks become a sharp, mocking countdown,
When every storm you fought has finally sailed,
And heavy skies pull all your anchors down,
Let the tempest break and tear the sky apart.
Let the freezing gales reshape the bitter land.
I will not break the rhythm of your heart,
But breathe beneath the pressure of your hand.

I’ll bend just like a reed against your wind.
Flexible, unyielding, rooted in the floor.
An edgy grace where light and dark are twinned,
To weather every storm behind your door.

The Vessel

You were whole once,
unruptured skin and solid bone,
before the fault lines tore through the bedrock.
I carved a sail from the raw fabric of my own chest
stitched it with silver wire and jagged thread,
singles spun from the cop of my heart,
and cast it out onto the black, teeth-gnashing seas.
I wanted it to cut through the spray,
to billow right by your side like a brazen wing.

But the dark water always claims its tithe.
Now you ride the swells with tattered cloth,
shredded ribbons of canvas whistling in the gale.
You do not weep; you spit salt back into the maw,
and sang to the wind—a low, raspy, defiant roar,

“Not today!”

Hope is a barren sky wide,
a vast and empty vacuum,
hollowed out by the lightning,
scrubbed raw by hail and frost.
Yet there you are,
drifting on the edge of the world’s end,
bleeding out into the foam, still fiercely upright.
Praying the sun will finally snap through the charcoal canopy.
Praying the light will shine down on your broken hull,
washing over your wounds,
and burn the winter out of your tired and mired wood.

The Captain

The tempest roars, a deafening sound,
The Captain grips the wheel tight,
Wrestling with the winds that abound,
Plunging through the endless night.

The sea lashes out at a weathered brow,
The freezing rain beats down in spite,
Guiding the ship, sail and prow,
Holding on out of love and for dear life.
With a battered body’s aches and strains,
Atop a raging, cold and cruel sea,
Through all the biting, driving rains,
The Captain fights to keep the rigging free.

Life is fleeting, the Captain well knows,
For every breath is precious and dear,
While fighting those dark, stormy blows,
Steering doubtless, holding back the fear.

©Thomas Crandall, 1 July 2026

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