Audacity in Blue

It was “haze gray and underway”,

a mantra from my youth,

that turned me to this retrospect,

to lessons learned, in truth.

I was 19 years and counting when

they first sent me to sea.

I’m lost for words to tell you, mate,

just what it meant to me

to walk that pier and board that ship.

My heart was filled with fear

the first time that I saw her from

the Alameda pier.

Though more than fifty years have passed

I can recall it still

as if it happened yesterday.

It took near all my will

to climb aboard, salute the flag

and face that grizzled Chief

who took my papers, sized me up

and offered no relief.

“Stand fast a minute son", he said,

“does mom know you're about?”

“I’ll call the watch in radio,

we’ll sort this here s*** out.”

“Come down and claim his a**”, he said

into the duty phone,

“Ya better hurry, mate, he's much

to young to be alone.”

That chief was near to God himself

to this, my younger self,

but I’d survive, report aboard

and find my "rack", a shelf

up near the metal overhead.

With “fondness”, I recall--

I slept in Sailor heaven twixt

a steam pipe and a wall.

A “bulkhead”, not a wall, I know,

at least I know it now.

I learned this fact and others but

don’t ask me when or how.

The mists of time hang round my head

in lost and foggy lines...

the dark exotic ports of call,

the taste of foreign wines,

the days at sea, the months and years

of salty sailor lore,

the ports and bars I can’t recall--

or won’t. A distant shore...

a sea of stories heard and told,

of truth and blatant myth,

I've scant recall of ocean's crossed,

of mates that I sailed with.

Across the years the ocean breeze

has filled this sailor's sails

with gratitude and in the end,

in truth, it never fails

to fill me with amazement that

the timid lad I knew

was turned into this salty swab...

audacity in blue.

~Dean Neighbors (USN ret)~