PrinceMyshkin
02-01-2008, 09:55 AM
Steaming
I have joined that fleet of steamships sailing onward through the
night, trailing fumes of ghostly vapour blowing incense in low light
and softly sending heavenward from fire down below in a
just-commissioned wood-stove where the mill-ends burn and glow.
Day and night we all are sailing down this valley we call home,
heading eastward or to westward, at the whim of wind and foam.
Smoke is streaming from our chimneys drifting downwind from the stack.
We are steaming, we are going where there is no turning back.
With no way on, never steering, all together we remain in
strict formation standing on a course-line with no gain.
And with stars above to guide us and the landscape to avoid,
we're not moving, we're just blowing chimney smoke where we are buoyed.
Almost every house around me sitting silent on the ground has
protruding from its upper floor one standing tall and round -
above the roof a smokestack gently wafting from its top, a
feathery plume of mist into the air, that does not stop. And
if the breeze should shift its course, the trails of all around
will find a way to stream again from these stacks run aground.
All that changes is the wind, the houses do not move, for
they are built on solid ground and tied into a groove that
does not shift or tolerate a lessening of space, no difference
of effort wins or loses in this race. We all are neighbours
steaming in our own peculiar way and the night is just a witness
to our smoke that blows away.
Rojan Zét
I have joined that fleet of steamships sailing onward through the
night, trailing fumes of ghostly vapour blowing incense in low light
and softly sending heavenward from fire down below in a
just-commissioned wood-stove where the mill-ends burn and glow.
Day and night we all are sailing down this valley we call home,
heading eastward or to westward, at the whim of wind and foam.
Smoke is streaming from our chimneys drifting downwind from the stack.
We are steaming, we are going where there is no turning back.
With no way on, never steering, all together we remain in
strict formation standing on a course-line with no gain.
And with stars above to guide us and the landscape to avoid,
we're not moving, we're just blowing chimney smoke where we are buoyed.
Almost every house around me sitting silent on the ground has
protruding from its upper floor one standing tall and round -
above the roof a smokestack gently wafting from its top, a
feathery plume of mist into the air, that does not stop. And
if the breeze should shift its course, the trails of all around
will find a way to stream again from these stacks run aground.
All that changes is the wind, the houses do not move, for
they are built on solid ground and tied into a groove that
does not shift or tolerate a lessening of space, no difference
of effort wins or loses in this race. We all are neighbours
steaming in our own peculiar way and the night is just a witness
to our smoke that blows away.
Rojan Zét