Safe Harbor

Past midnight, and much darker

than when I hit the pillow,

I heard the channel marker

appraising every billow

whose overweighted crest

collapsed with all the rest.

Its single note, dividing

the shallow from the deep,

took on the task of guiding

me out again toward sleep,

loosing the stubborn painter.

The port lights playing fainter,

it braced me past the bold

breakwater that takes the pulse

of tides in pincer hold,

a final perch for gulls.

It tolled me seaward, till

it too, becalmed, held still

and the unfathomed sea

again made room for me.