SEA WEARY

I’m tired of the rolling

and confinement gets me down

and the weather has turned nasty

and the crew greets me with frowns

and the pudding tastes like chowder

and the chowder turns out brown

It may be a place for sailors

who have no other life

but I miss the old familiars

and long for my sweet wife

So turn the capstain slowly round

and head me home to port

cause I’ve had my fill of flippers

and of fish sorting for sport

And when I’m home I’m sure

my thoughts of this time will be found

To grow on me like old cheese

tasted when no more’s around

For the humdrum is forgotten

and the austere mighty sea

Gain romance and adventure

in wistful memory

Cause everyday experience

fills time like daily bread

It loses edge of novelty

like books already read

and passing rainbows in the mist

filtered through daily haze

Are often missed entirely

as we rush about our ways

So even though I linger

on the world I left behind

I know inside I’ll soon be glad

I left those sunny climes

For a touch of clean wind in my face

and sun so rare it blinds

Because this world revealed in dribs

will occupy my mind

As I pursue the long embrace

to which my research binds

Where nets and trawls and MOCNESS hauls

reflect a patterned pace

and though they are just numbers

they help reveal this place

Back home in sunny climes

I sweat with data brought back home

and ponder with fond sadness

the life beneath the foam

Where whales and fish pursue

a dish

of patchy plankton stew

and up on deck we transect on

and tease apart the glue

that hides the secrets known to them

down in the briny blue.