A Run for Home by Metchosin (a work in progress)

(In loving memory of David and Wendy Trail, John Trail and Mary Anne Grubb, lost at sea, November, 1978)

On a gray November day
The Gustav made its way
Round the rocks and down the inlet
Out to sea,
And its engine throbbed and droned,
As it plunged and rolled to home
Through the rising wind and foam
Of heaving sea.

Through an agony of time
While they pace and fret and pine
For a message from their loved ones,
Out at sea,
Arrival day came and went
With no word, no signal sent
To end worry and lament,
Oh, where at sea?

The Pacific's northern gale
Leaves no trace, tells no tale,
Of lives in ships, storm tossed
On wild seas,
Just a single fishing float
Bearing name of missing boat
Flung in a cove remote
By roiling sea.

On a windswept grassy knoll
Above the ceaseless breakers roll
Where wind crook'd pine is stooped
By timeless sea,
Lies a cold, flat granite stone
Forgotten and alone
And carved words cut to the bone:
"Lost at sea".

Copyright©1999 S. Grieve