Quantum Mechanics
for Ralph Oman

We squint in spray, barely keeping our eyes
Open – the things we see we have to fight
To see, blinking through the stinging salt
And aching sun against the looming size
Of wind-snapped crests.  The brilliant sun’s so bright
That every trough could be a moving fault
And every heaving wave a flaw the vale
Of space and time does not define.  I trim
The sail, but through the spray and light it’s him
I watch.  He sails as if he couldn’t fail
To do whatever he sets out to do,
As if his will alone could steer us through
And change each one of these anomalies
Of wind and wave to navigable seas.

Marcus Bales

If you've any comments on this poem, Marcus Bales would be pleased to hear from you.