Plotted Course Poem by David Taylor

Did you set sail on the winds of conviction
with a mainsail hoisted high within
cutting through the surging crowded waves
of salty and deceitful knaves
across the many oceans of churning doubts
that from the deep kept shouting turn about;

did you fly past determined headlands
into the heart of bleakest storms
and on their thunder passing
give praise for such a calm and peaceful
broken light of dawn;

and in that calm that followed
quietly watch the clouds go floating past
as you settled in the present
and left far away behind you
all those doubts and storms at last;

did you set a course to follow
straight and true to yonder port
and then get a thought within you
that your course would come to naught;

did you find some alluring misted islands
with sirens so softly felt
that somehow they beguiled you
and off your plotted course
you were without resistance sent;

did you find yourself a forlorn shipwreck
broken on the rocks of tides' dark despair
against high cliffs that climbed so far
into the darkness and foreboding
that seemed all that there was there;

and as you climbed for freedom
did you find that hidden cave
that contains all that you had been seeking
on that day the wind was in your sails
and you thought that all you'd prayed for
was found so very, very far away?