The Wheelwright’s Daughter
February 27, 2011
O, withering sailor bones,
You came floating like an autumn leaf on the breeze to my harbor.
Suddenly the waves quit crashing and the winds grew calm when I found you
I was skipping stones with the fisherman’s children,
And we carried your broken body up the hill and through the yews to my cottage
And like a pile of bones, dead still, you’ve lain in these threadbare blankets for a couple of days
O, withering sailor bones,
There was a haze of delusion in your eyes and you spoke as if I had ceased the storm
Who is this queen of which you spoke when you broke the sweat of fever dreams?
Come now, swallow this tea of service-berry and catmint leaves
The winter has come o’er the far side of the mountains, silhouetted by the sunrise
There’s nobody here but our families,
Generations of children grown up to make more
Blacksmiths, coopers, and cobblers and millers and joyners and weavers of tapestry
We have no queen and we have no God, just a blanket of snow over juniper needles
And the old growth canopy under which we lay our heads…
This is one of the songs from the new album, Califia that O’ Handsome Navigator is working on, planning to start preliminary recording in March.
