the happiest sailor

I broke a HUGE rule tonight.  I went up into the attic of the garage here on Merino.

Tom:  asleep. He and I made a promise never to do that without the other watching, caring, because:  What if one fell?

Anyway:  I needed to find a gift I had given him, one year into our time together.  I had a need to share it with all of you.  He'll forgive me. 

I found it.  In one of those "Why the Hell do we Hang onto Boxes like This" moments.  Here's why:

A poem I wrote him and gifted him on Valentine's Day, 1985, when words were all I really had to give.

the ship
and sails
and sun
drift on toward
the sky...

The men on board
hoist the sails of
white...and clear
their minds of
thought.

        The sunset
sings, as the Gulls
from some distant
island lull the men
into a moist rum-
chilled stuporous sleep.

Ship, sails, and sun
continue drifting
as the men wax
upon the dreams
they've left behind.

But the sundrenched
thoughts of one man
conjures are not of what he has left behind

but of what awaits
him upon his return.

and, he...

is the happiest sailor.