17 plus 17 Lost at Sea

17 plus 17 Lost at Sea

17 years surrounding this world
Going back and forth
Making rounds
Plus 17 lost at sea
Losing all sight of shores
And dry land
Snows and poplar trees
And mountains
And valleys below and green ribbons grown out too long and ripe
And the aching sounds the dust makes
In prayer to heaven
17 years at a time
Purgatory
Pressed against the wall
Red eyes watching your every move
Like a Trotsky staring from out his
Sanctuary
Hidden is plan
17 years of sin waiting
To get into the paradise
Prison built by Czars
And Princes
None of us remembers
Here lost upon the ocean
That we cannot drown ourselves in
Only come out cleaner and damper and shivering
17 years making our rounds
Back and forth around this
World.