The flying Dutchman: for James Michener.

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
for James Michener

   Let it come. Why should you hold back that power
   When you know you must truly mirror the gale?
   What if you are only a fiction, a shadow--
   A figment, a phantom flying illusory sails?
   You are the numinous opposite of Noah
   Doomed never to land, descried on all seas,
   Glimpsed pale in terror 'twixt flashes of lightning,
   A mountain of water boiling over your masts.
   Let the wind shriek through you, let the fantastic
   Desire to cut through every snarling white crest
   Drive you over the cries of the shipwrecked and dying.
   For you see it clearly, the impossible cape
   Of fools who think they have rounded it
   Forever, inhaling the green lee of the earth.
   But you, Dutchman, drive on against death.