Drifting On the Sea - Hart Crane - Poem by Peter Nolan Smith

From 2/14/2021

Sunken fishermen struggle to swim
Without anyone warm enough
To shed a tear
And they know who will join the sea.

The night stars illuminate the path to nothing.
For a drunken poet someplace to be other than the wet Caribbean

A ship's aft lights dim in the dark
And the engines bury the voices of the drunken sailors
Who gave you a new home beneath the waves.
Boots floating ever down to the bottom.

One last thought.

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand
Through much of what she would not understand;
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter. - Hart Crane