Sail South 'Til The Butter Melts

for Chris Anderson

Born as I was on Columbus Day,
I sometimes envy the Italians
Of North Beach, San Francisco,
The last ones who can still get away
With celebrating it. No one, after all
Would dare contravene the rights
Of “ethnicity,” PC or no.
But it was nearly miraculous, as even
The most churlish would have
To admit, what your Genoese namesake
Did: not the stumbling over
A continent; sooner or later
Someone would have done that,
But having the compulsion,
The vision as we might say
In this age of self-help scams
And televised psychotherapy,
To throw the dice with confidence,
Never questioning that the outcome
Would at least be worth the queen’s
Indulgence. He was just past 40
When he made the trip, much older
Than we. Yet here we are,
Sipping coffee after nearly 40 years
In a world much kinder than the one
He knew, and the heuristic rock
Keeps skipping back to him.
Finding ways to find your way:
The gamble has become no less great,
Despite GPS and radar,
Since he groped for the torrid zone,
Before that myopic starboard turn
Into nearly-dead Sargasso,
Then to the enigma of Hispaniola,
Not, as he hoped, to rich Cathay.
The matched clocks tick out of
Sequence from where they hang,
In two rooms, on three different walls,
Their lack of precision a reminder
That finding ways to find your way
Remains what it is: all, and all.