Order Poem by Nancy Terrell

Having lived with a lovely amount of contentment
with David for the past year or so,
I remember back to the years before
when life was not so well ordered.

I was much more insecure then
for order gives me false security
He was delivering yachts here and there
I was left, being afraid of the open sea.

To please me, he took a managerial shore job
coming home to a dinner already made
and awakening to the alarm of the 7 am ferry
My life was predictable. There was order.

After a year of this tranquil existence,
I decided that I really missed the see-saw
of an uncharted life. I begged him to quit
which he did. Although his life is the sea not the shore.

It is now a year later. He leaves this week for Antiguia.
When he returns there is a delivery to New York.
After that we both take JESSIE to the Bahamas
and then cruise with ANTARES to surrounding islands.

Will I feel insecure again, knowing he is at sea
and I am not. I have had blue water experience now
Comfort, it is not. Is that the problem?
That order is comfort and comfort is order?

Do I just not like to have my routine upset -
mentally more than physically?
But then, I am the one that left a husband -
to search for a more meaningful life.

Does meaning relate to order?
Or could it be that the very spontenity of living
with someone like David gives me the desire
to shake off familiar chains.