For those whose only encounter with the ocean is
a gentle harbor cruise,
Or whose income is catching a computer with a
paycheck very hard to lose,
Facing the most dangerous time when on the
weekends the bars discharge,
Too many party goers weaving and stumbling and
now at large.
Where exercise is not work but is at a
controlled pace confined to a luxury gym,
Recreation and social time, followed up by fresh
juices in a steam, later a relaxing swim.
To those “The Deadliest Catch” must seem like a tale
from a strange, far out alien world,
With howling winds of sprayed salt air while
angry towering waves continually swirled,
With a barometer quickly falling at sonic speed
into the gates of weather hell,
Bow quickly into the wind before another over
the pilot house killing swell.
Here the ocean has all the odds and holds the
largest stack of chips,
Dealing marked cards turned over to a hand of
men floating and a sinking ship,
What drives a man from the comfort of hearth and
home to leave?
What possibly can balance the risk with what he
may achieve?
A real risk of a lonely shivering hypothermic
bitter end,
Floating fish food miles from shore, miles from
family or friends?
It cannot be the money for here too often you
meet the ocean’s curse,
You never know when or if the stormy sea will
open up its crabbing purse.
It cannot be for freedom for many a captain is
an Alaskan copy of William Bligh.
How can you fathom placing self in harm’s way of
maiming or to freeze and die?
The answer may be that in all of us there beats
a warrior’s heart,
In a PC world with too many laws and lawyers,
from it we are kept too far apart
And in a nine to five civilized safe world we
may miss the death defying thrills,
But with children, wives and mortgages, sadly we
can no longer afford to pay those bills
But it passes PC muster to go into the Gulf or
Bering Sea for the King Crabs to fetch,
Despite all dangers return to port, hull down, a
brave survivor of “The Deadliest Catch.”
You will fear no man and maybe not even God and
stand eternally straight and tall,
How could you not exceed any goal after
surviving howling, frigid 50 foot ocean walls?
Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
©July 25, 2007
www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
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