This is the captain’s selection of his favourite poems of the sea accompanied by photos of which the captain thinks they visually reflect the poem’s message along with a short and very personal discussion.
Storm at Sea By Amar Qamar
By Amar Qamar
CRASHING waves… SMASHING seas…
Bringing sailors to their knees.
As they struggle to save their lives
Hoping and praying, help arrives.
The stormy seas as dark as coal,
Preventing the sailors from reaching their goal.
Battered and bruised, but still they fight…
Staring ahead, into the dead of night.
Rocking and rolling as they try to stand…
Hoping against hope, that they soon reach land.
Bleary eyed from lack of sleep.
Down in their cabins, huddled like sheep.
As they’re rocking and rolling down beneath
Weary sailors above, resist with gritted teeth.
hours later, as the storm starts to dissipate,
It leaves a calm tranquil sea in it wake.
The veteran sailors know the battle is over, and they have won…
As contemplate, other storms yet to come…
Photo taken on December 28, 2019, North Atlantic Ocean, east of Great Inagua, Bahamas by Maik Ulmschneider
Discussion
This is the fantastic work of the young contemporary British poet Amar Qamar and he really is dead-on. Whoever was in a storm on a sailboat will never forget the sounds, the movements, the batting and bruising. And this exhaustion and still not being able to sleep, for tension, for stress, for fear. Yes, I think Amar Qamar perfectly describes the fears every sailor experiences in a storm, the sheer helplessness so that only hoping and praying is left. I also think in the last line he relays wonderfully the paradox that veteran sailors dread the next storm even more. Because they know what to fear, and they know it was pure luck that they made it last time. The word “won” is keen in this context, but this is how you feel after you survived a storm at sea.
More poems of Amar Qamar: http://amarqamar.blogspot.com
You want to read about Seefalke’s experience in tropical storm Gamma?
A Sailor Bold By Annette Wynne
Sometimes I think I’d like to roam,
A sailor bold across the sea,
But how could Mother stay at home
And be so very far from me?
For who would sing my sleepy song,
And tuck me in my sailor bed,
And say God watches all night long,
And kiss me when my prayers are said?
I wonder if the sailor lad
Is very, very lonely when
The loud wind blows; and is he sad,
And does he long for home again?
So, after all, I would not roam,
Until I’m eight to seas afar,
While I am seven I’ll stay at home
Where Mother and her kisses are.
Photo taken on December 09, 2019, North Atlantic Ocean, south of Great Inagua, Bahamas by Maik Ulmschneider
Discussion
Annette Wynne, a less known American poet of the early 20th century, was specialized in children’s poetry. Quite a few of her poems are about the children’s view of the sea.
I personally feel that her poems have a powerful force of expression also for us adults. As adults little is left that leaves us in awe and admiration but also with the fear of the unknown. Facing something as giant and unfathomable as the sea, don’t we all become little kids again?
Also it is not only little kids who feel the ambiguity of wanting to go and wanting to stay. It is the fate of all sailors, in the past as much as today. It draws us towards new horizons, new encounters, new experience, it doesn’t come for free, though. We pay with separation from our dears, friends and family.
This poem puts in simple words the most difficult and ultimate decision every sailor has to make.
If you want to experience the culture shock that I felt when I visited home after months at sea, you should read this:
Crossing the Bar By Alfred Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
Photo taken on Nov 04, 2020 at Isla Mujeres, Mexico
by Maik Ulmschneider
Discussion
“Crossing the bar” is a nautical term for crossing the sandbar at the entrance of harbors and rivers, setting out to sea. Figuratively it also stands for “embarking for the boundless deep”, for the last voyage from life to death.
I made this photo when I was walking on the eastern shore of Isla Mujeres, the wild shore, the shore where the wild ocean meets the rocks of the island. I saw the eerie sky and the wild waves breaking at the bar. I thought of how much I did not want to cross that bar now and I thought of the early rescue boats whose most dangerous part of the rescue often was crossing that bar. That was on November 04, 2020, in the week of the celebrations of Dia de Muertos, one of the most important holidays here in Mexico where the dead are celebrated. It is a happy holiday rather than a sad one where their lives are celebrated and happy moments with them.
Baron Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was British poet. He even was the “poet laureate” for Queen Victoria, a semi-official position expected to write about significant national events. “Crossing the Bar” was one of Tennyson’s last poems, written in 1889 at sea when he crossed the Solent Aldworth to the Isle of Wight. It was after he suffered a serious illness and he used the extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the bar. Shortly before he died in 1892 he told his son to make this poem the very last in any published collection of his work.
The Old Sailboat By Francis Charles Macdonald
Dismasted, rudderless, sides agape,
She lies upon the beach a wreck,
She that was wont, a lovely shape,
To sail with beauty on her deck.
Beneath the moon before the wind
She sped, and floods of silvery speech
Poured over her: yet now I find
Only the hulk upon the beach.
For they are gone; the house is gone;
Beauty has faded, lips are still:
The old boat on the beach alone
Lies in the shadow of the hill.
Photo taken November 02, 2020, Makes Lagoon, Isla Mujeres, Mexico by Maik Ulmschneider