Memoirs In Verse

This free verse poem in sonnet form describes the events of one calm night in the Coral Sea aboard ‘Chengtu’. Listen to:  The Distress Flare I'd never seen a brighter, more flawless sky, until that cloudless night at sea revealed its host of glimmering, embroidered stars above a moonlit sea of sapphires. When a fiery red and silver flare flew skyward, and like poor Pheidippides arrived from ancient Athens’ Marathon, fulfilled its purpose, and exhausted died. Roused into action by the soaring flare, I altered course, and in our searchlight’s probing beam, I saw a fishing boat adrift, her crew near death from days without water. They had but one such flare to send aloft, and wept to know that one had saved their lives.