The Sea-Birds' Cry

Poemata LXXI

That the sea-birds cry / marks no calamity now / waves reclaim the land

Only power may answer Power, unfortunately --
 Excess words we speak, running a ship with a leak
  Sinking slowly down, and run so carelessly
   If we learned to sail -- we would be fated to fail;
Light it is for us to speak, as to the wind
 Swallowed are our thoughts -- given in tens and lots
  Live ephemerally, what thought is left within?
   Without inside is all; sound being equal to call;
But the cry of sea-birds in summer's zenith height
 Riding upon this ship -- talons providing some grip;
  But not much, observers still in spite
   Of the wind's hard turn; having yet naught left to learn.
Shouting at a storm no lighter speech recalls--
 Hearing not, the wind -- darkling, and gray shadow-skinned
  Tempests come, the thoughtless sky, the empty squalls
   Water, inside-out, words are not roaring without;
Hunker down, ye scavengers, so carelessly
 Made this wreck your home, scarce it now peeks o'er the foam;
  Only power may answer Power, unfortunately;
   Learn to swim my friend, cry not of woe, in the End.     

Author’s Note: Continues my series of elegies. This one is a chiasm.