But you said they were neat and saw where they were going
Instead of seeing white as work to do,
You saw the space as everything
in a corner of infinite potential
You saw the all books pile up you cared not to read,
you knew there were poems being written you wouldn’t like,
but listened to all the summaries intently
as though these beamings held up the roof.
Needing you to say, I like this view, you did.
And on the Future we stood atop,
not under, Trust
and knew it to be seaworthy,
come a flood,
having sailed and proven so
in worse storms than before.
This is why they call ships She
sails catching wind, why the butterfly
has nothing better to do but change into more,
We can pitch caution
And roll on, we were on track ,
you said this time
let us be wreckless and lucky
like you little lady.
Painting by Arnold Böcklin, Villa by the Sea (c. 1871-1874) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.