Voyage

The ship was crammed to bursting:
luggage, lifejackets, jammed benches,
passengers sitting on one another’s laps.
Was this a ferry plying between islands?
We have passed Age’s icy caves
And manhood’s dark and tossing waves
And once these were behind us,
we hugged a coast, and glided
past promontories, cliffside villages,
steep hills slanting down to little harbors.
On each pier a festive group was gathered:
bridal whites, bright bouquets,
black suits and glossy patent leather shoes,
vivid even from a distance,
gleamed in the salty air.
A wedding or a festival?
A mourning or a funeral?
The gathered celebrants in every harbor
waved as we sailed past, and we waved back,
steadily plowing onward. Where and when:
not the right questions. Time
was an element, not a place,
and in and through it on we went,
the landmarks of each life
bobbing in our wake.

• About
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Rachel Hadas

Rachel Hadas's new works include Piece by Piece (Paul Dry Books), Love and Dread, and her most recent book of poems, Pandemic Almanac. She is one of some forty translators of Nonnus's massive epic Tales of Dionysus (University of Michigan Press, 2022). Her new book of poems, Ghost Guest, will be published later this year.

Also by Rachel Hadas (see all)

• Voyage - March 2, 2023
• Though Much Is Taken, Much Abides:Fifteen Years of Literature & Medicine - May 22, 2022
• The Labyrinth, the Septic Tank - October 30, 2021

Author: Rachel Hadas

Rachel Hadas's new works include Piece by Piece (Paul Dry Books), Love and Dread, and her most recent book of poems, Pandemic Almanac. She is one of some forty translators of Nonnus's massive epic Tales of Dionysus (University of Michigan Press, 2022). Her new book of poems, Ghost Guest, will be published later this year. View all posts by Rachel Hadas