Memoirs In Verse

Listen to: A Sonnet for Halley's Comet The passing of a distant ship is brief, A moment's glint of light upon the sea, Perhaps all I learn of her plodding course, Yet you keep lofty station close by me. Your growing splendour heralds your return, With rich displays of pure astronomy. As landsmen slumber idle in their beds, What wealth and beauty you reveal to me. While I behold your passage bright and clear, For weeks upon this ocean's starlit way, And though past perihelion you will fade, Pray, keep me company until that day. For blessed is this mariner and poet, To sail with the vagrant Halley's Comet—the Harbinger of Change.

Listen to: Noon at Sea The sun spurns the landsman’s mark, Of the clock tower’s hourly chime,  She keeps to her diurnal path, And to her shining zenith climbs.   I, braced against the deck’s,  Unruly heaving, pitch and roll, Stand bullied by the punching wind, And hold her in my sextant’s eye.  The vernier proves her progress, Towards the summit of the day,  Then I bear witness to her crossing, My meridian at noon that day.