7 A.M

Port inky blue

Moon slightly squashed, almost full

Clouds, could be cumbilonobilominolumbus –

Unpronounceable, ask Debbie.

Starboard

White, almost, foggy horizon lightening

Purple and lilacs rising.

Ahead, lost Welsh tribe

With dinosaurs

David excited.

Ship, slow-going walrus

A little tied up right now

Freer, later.

Birds rarer

Formerly, busy

Petrels turning

Flocks of birders up early on bridge

Swinging long lenses, in the faces, of tired navigators

Eduardo sees Royal Albatross, Santiago does not

Argentinian one upmanship.

Horizon 360 degrees

Now cold blue, iced with pink

Still no sunrise.

Mind wanders to Mark’s pictures of women

Wearing dental floss

Distracting.

Tummy rumbling, unlike engine

Breakfast yearning

But still waiting for green flash

Jim says it’s true, perhaps he’s joking.

Still no sun

Maybe on strike

Somewhere near Italy

Or running away

From Donald Trump.

Ah look!  Look and see

Starboard ho!

See her,

Sol, mother of life

Fiery provider of light

Rising disk, rising fast

A hill, a mound of burning white

A disk, higher and higher

Brighter, brighter

Mesmerizing, now, so quickly

Too bright to stare

Shining, blazing

Clear of horizon

Changing everything

Everything.

I had been doubting

Impatient, fearful

I should have had faith

The sun will always rise again

To fill the world with light

To fill the world with life

And color.

Yes, it is Easter Sunday

The sun will always rise again.

- Roddy Bray, ship cultural anthropologist and unofficial poet laureate