This ship is important to him
because somewhere in its lower depths
he hears the sound of his own breathing
as an engine clanking, clanking,
driving the ship on, all the gears grinding,
expenditure of force making
a hash of noise so that he cannot
hear himself think about her for more than a second
unless he looks beyond the shape of starlit waves
to the wide sea without edges
where, standing and staring there
like a sea-bird born to the sea
with the whole world its circumference,
oblivious to the challenge of fire
because in its dancing it is fire,
he forgets the sounds under his feet,
the skeletal pipes and funnels and valves,
the maze of mechanical accomplishment
that run invisibly everywhere and remembers
the feeling of first voyage, the shore he has left.