The Slip

Life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward. - Thoreau

bobbing up and down

treading water

always there

with your flowing, red hair

marking time

always abiding

most of you hiding

suddenly

without warning

you're gone

was it last night's storm

i'll never know

you didn't leave a goodbye note

to chart my course and keep me afloat

like mata hari

some pip

giving me the slip

i hope you come back some day

really

no hooey

you're so much more than a safe harbor buoy

Author's Note

"The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not vomit up. He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles." - Thoreau