Come here, my kitties,
My pretty kitties,
And let an old man’s cracked hands
Run through your soft fur.
On mornings such as this, at 4 AM,
I’d be on a ship, a cargo ship,
Bound for Norway, the Americas, et cetera,
To scatter the spoils of England
To spoil the whole world over
From the Port of our fair Dover.
But I was young then.
Then I was stationed on a crabbing craft
And my back,
Bleached by sun and surf –
Colder than you might realize
Until it whips you to work with salty reins –
Creaked and groaned like the craft’s hull
To a hunched point.
And on that boat
As I heaved in the net
Entangled with seaweed and our paycheck
Labor wore me down.
I wanted a family
But all I got was crabs –
Day in and day out,
Crabs, crabs, crabs…
I could hardly stand it.
Everyday I lamented
Wondering what my future held
Until one night
An epiphany!
As a storm beat us about
And nearly tore the ship to splinters
Under Poseidon’s foot,
I realized the future wasn’t my concern.
God, who works through all time,
Can see to that –
But me?
I can only do the present,
So I ought to focus on the present.
And, in the present of that storm,
I vowed then and there
That crabbing was not for me,
And quit the sea forever.
That was yesterday, my kitties,
You precious, stray, bitty kitties,
When I finally realized my folly
A little bit too late.
Why didn’t you try to warn me
Before my life was spent away?
Why didn’t I try preparing
What was for what I wish it were?
My future seemed so clear to me
But my life was too foggy
Since they was guesses
At what lay ahead
In uncharted, misted waters.
Foggy, misted, just like this morning now –
A kind of morning I never payed attention to
In anticipation for warmer sunrises.
I’ll trust God with those, but for now
The only one who knows me
Are these waters.
I must leave you now, frail kitties,
From our sopping stairs –
Don’t try to stop me
As I walk down the embankment
And wade back into that cold, salty mist
I dreamt my whole life of escaping.
And as the water laps against my toes,
My knees, my stomach, my shoulders,
Into my mouth,
Just watch me, my kitties,
Just watch me from the shore,
And mark how I’m no deeper
Than I ever was before.
Morning's Early Dark 