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Dead night--
as green waves swell on stormy seas,
and fog creaks to ice on
winter nights.
Our sleep rocks to these
relentless ocean
seashell roars.
Until, until, until....some lonesome
faraway foghorn sounds across our
rolling waters,
shivers and dissolves
into Ethan's night-time
cries,
across the hall, on the shore,
3 a.m., many leagues away.
We climb the ropes
from our oceanic sleep,
and man the lifeboats
as best we can,
finding him like the
Gloucester man at his
squall-soaked wheel,
pitched forward on crib bars,
lashed by fears, drenched by dreams,
howling into the storms
of our New England nights.
1984