Seasons greetings, lighter days to come

                     



TASHTEGO BELIEVED RED

A hand comforts held out to one who's sinking;
And what founders deeper than a world which sinks?
Like a lost ship it never once says thanks,
Since no single hand can save its timber drinking
The poisoned salt its sides awash are flanking,
Thirsty for web of weeds or sift of sandbanks,
Its last music gunshot, its gesture poise of tanks
Over the wood where swathes of death are ranking...
But witness, the hand is no hand but an arm
Curving itself with the strong swimmer's flex
- A thousand arms which thresh against the blast
Of a regressive ocean, even whose calm
Is derelict with that impartiality which wrecks
- Yet regard, regard, the red banner nailed to the msst!

                              Malcolm Lowry 1909-1957
                              best known for novel 'Under the Volcano.
                              and seaborn short stories 'Hear us, oh lord...'


PS
The image is a collage of junkmail etc begun by Ada and finished - with sweating palms - by me. I'm 80 tomorrow and find myself more blessed with wife and family than Lowry was. Take comfort too from other facts of life at sea: tides turn and even sailing boats can make headway upwind, not straight on, but tacking this way and that. (Same with truth: 'He that will reach her, about must and about must go' - John Donne, though now he might say She)