The Offing

The Nellie rests her keel upon the flood Beneath a sky the color of smoke and lead The tide stands still in the Gravesend reach Where the living wait to join the silent dead The air is thick, a veil of spectral halos A passage etched in a language long deceased We gauge the light for a faint, dark dimple As the surface-poetry is finally released There is no time for the romance of the surface Only the rivets to stop the spreading hole A derelict mission, the record is open To document the clearance of the imperial soul Into the offing... into the mournful gloom...