Artwork

Whoever works a storm to windward, sails
in rain, or navigates in island fog,
must reckon from the slow-swung lead, from squalls

on cheek; must bear by compass, chart, and log.
Parallels are ruled from compass rose
to known red nun: but stỉll the landfall leg

rỉsks set of tide, lost buoys, and breakers’ noise
on shore where no shore was. Whoever plots
his homing on these Eastward islands knows

how Sou’west smoke obscures the sunny charts,
how gulls cry on a numberless black spar.
Where North is West of North, not true, he pilots

best who feels the shore for standpipe, spire,
tower, or stack, who owns local knowledge of shoal
or ledge, whose salt nose smells the spruce shore.

Where echoes drift, where the blind groundswell
clangs an iron bell, his fish-hook hand
keeps steady on the helm. He weathers rainsquall,

linestorm, fear, who bears away from the sound
of sirens wooing hỉm to the cape’s safe lee.
He knows the ghostship bow, the sudden headland

immanent in fog; but where rocks wander, he
steers down the channel that hỉs courage
dredges. He knows the chart is not the sea.


Chart 1203, by Philip Booth


After work I stopped in to a local market to get something to eat and saw this piece of art on the wall. I like this artist's work, especially his wooden bas relief pieces like this one.