Jagged spires on a smoky skyline. I heave-to at midnight, wake Thea To smell the fragrance of the tropics. Tiare, copra, frangipani, A dozen more exotic scents. Off Taiohae Bay at dawn, We slip past the Sentinels. On a long sand strand.
Tropic birds flit like butterflies Among impossibly green ravines.
French bungalows, flame trees, Jeep traffic on the foreshore. Eight yachts at anchor. The hook splashes, Celerity Curtsies, bobs, Furls broad wings. To cross an ocean under sail, A dream of many, for some, A fever relentlessly raging until the thing is done. No longer of the sea, We stand motionless, embraced.