In the Storm

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The sea wails and rages;
it wears away our valor.
It rushes through this raft
as if seeking a lost pearl.
Does it mourn its scaly sons
dredged up from the briny depths?
Storm clouds point accusing arms
at us weary, toiling men.
We cannot give an answer
above the howling, angry din.
We pull and pull and pull,
and it makes no bloody difference.
I write a new will in my mind,
a favorite pastime for us sailors.
My brother grits his teeth
into a panting grin of death,
and the oars groan with the weight
of the heaving waves at hand.
My God, my God, my God,
why hast thou sent us in?
Into the judgment of the deep,
into the fury of the sea,
into the salty, foamy sleep
that growls now like a prowling beast?
It marks well its hell-domain:
curséd, dying me.
Dark, dark, dark.
We sail the drunken dark.
It opens up its famished maw,
its laughing, unhinged Hades-jaw,
as if a circling shark.
Our half-chewed bread and flakes of fish
did not satisfy;
instead this tempest shall not rest
until it claims our lives.
A shadow treads the wind-tossed waves,
and I think my end is come.
“Away, away,” I cry in vain
to the looming one.
“Fear not,” says he, “for it is I,”
and I hear my very life
wash back to me from inky deep,
where it had thought to sink and lie.
I drop my oar and peer over the bobbing side.
I decide, too quick, too rash, too dim:
I will go out to meet him.
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