“A man dying of cancer whose beloved sailboat was hit by another boat and totaled yesterday in a race”

Beneath the waning flush of June,  
He lies—this sailor, weathered, thin—  
With wan hands folded on a sheet,  
The tang of salt still on his skin.  
Outside the hospice window’s glare,  
A sliver of the restless bay  
Reminds him of the sudden blow  
That took his "Mistral" yesterday.  

Her hull—a pale and pine-bright blue—  
Had caught the dawn’s first gull-winged light,  
For fifty years she rode the waves,  
His steady pulse, his heart’s delight.  
Oh, how she danced on breaking crests,  
The mainsail blushing in the breeze,  
And how they favored luck and line—  
Two dauntless sailors, both at ease.  

Yesterday the foamy race—  
The horn, the rush, the vessels’ shouts,  
And then that startled, splintered shock—  
Her frame undone, her star snuffed out.  
Men shouted from the rescue boats,  
He saw her mast slip out of view,  
Then, nothing left but oily trails  
Across a sea too wide, too blue.  

Now in his room the hush is steep;  
The flowers on his table nod.  
He aches not from the sailing’s end,  
But from the silence that’s abroad.  
Some might recall a trophy gleam,  
Or hands black-streaked from line and tar,  
But he—he keeps that sudden gust  
When pure wind bore him out, afar.  

So if you glimpse a ripple bright  
Far past horizon’s silent rim,  
Perhaps you’ll see a flash of blue—  
And know the "Mistral" sails with him.

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