The Settlement of Virginia

Spinning the thin lines on a map, looping

Land's end to London, voyage after voyage,

The slow push of ships, pumping the stream

Of contrivers and intragants across

The sea surfaces,

Above the unlighted cities of shell, leaving

The gull's arc to windward, above

The sea monsters, the multitudinous

Life. in its watery forms,

Polyp and angler,

Moved onward, moved to the west, moved

Through the breakers to the back waters,

Through the straits and the inlets, past tide's pull,

To touch the new shore,

The new world:

Lives, with the prodigality of the sea,

Swarmed in a generation over the lush land,

Impregnated the valleys, flowed over the low mountains,

Turned trees, rocks, to shelter, planted and grew,

Settled Virginia.

Coleman Rosenberger