I can't believe I wrote this. Oh well, what can I say?

The brave Skipper Nelson would sail up

To the dock in his leaky old boat

And step off into the twilight

In his thick fisherman’s sweater and coat.

He called Nancy his belle his sweetheart, she

Came to greet him and see what he caught, and

She was so young and so pretty

That her honor could never be bought!

Oh sail away, won’t you sail away?

It’s a sailor’s life for me.

The ocean is rolling with beckon and call,

And only a sailor is free, is free.

Only a sailor is free!

The Skipper held a dream down deep in his heart,

And behind his scraggly white fisherman’s beard,

And under a kindly manner, his mind was set

To go after and conquer the fish that he feared.

So one night the Skipper came not to the shore,

Nor did the light find his boat in the mooring,

But the high walls of water and the bright sea sun

Held the secret of the Skipper’s sail and oar.

The Skipper drove straight for the open seas

With tiller clasped in a firm skipper’s stand.

Every article of his ship ware had yielded

Once at least to his time-toughened hand.

And he knew his boat well, or ne’er would he sail

More an extension of his will than his hand.

He merged, becoming one with the motion and mist

And passed far beyond the sight of the land.

And blackness of night on the sea was intense.

In clearings of weather, he found bearings above.

The shining stars formed his beacons of passage,

And he read them as one puts a hand in a glove.

On that dread day, daybreak came red and clear

In the stillness, the chilled boatman wiped his brow.

The silence above and beyond earth and sky

Bode ill of a force lurking deep ‘neath the prow.

Hours passed, the heat rose, the time dwindled on.

The Skipper shielded his eyes and yielded a yawn.

Sleep came upon him, as the day trickled by,

And the visitor came between darkness and dawn.

Feeling it, he jumped, the boat seized to the side.

Both oars rose from the water to fly,

A gale tore the mainsail and toppled the pole.

The poor man knew not if he’d live or he’d die.

In midday, the sky came in darkness again.

A spiral fountain swirled up and took him inside,

The fish in the water rose high up above him,

And the curtain of heaven fell down to the land.

Brave Skipper, sure! He’d faced nature before.

He had strength in his forearms and steel in his oar.

He feared not commotion, the wholesale uproar.

He took the fierce lashing and came back for more.

Yet this day stung him down deep in his heart.

His long journey had somehow taken him here.

He had driven his life for this one awful moment,

And now he would know the extent of his fear.

A necklace of emeralds, the islands lie scattered,

Where children crack coconuts burnt brown by the sun,

Play water games and collect fishes’ teeth for trinkets.

Their land is for play, and the sea is their fun.

Oh sail away, won’t you sail away?

It’s a sailor’s life for me.

The ocean is rolling with beckon and call,

And only a sailor is free, is free.

Only a sailor is free!