Elegy for the VASHON
She dreams speed
but wakes
to soft knots and rust—the black worms
of fifty years coiling night
inside her beams.
She suffers
the slow groans
of each nail clawed free.
Down the Sound’s blue throat
from Anacortes
she came,
Queen of the San Juans,
ceaseless pumps keeping her trim.
Heavy lines tied up
a small legend
to a cold slip in Eagle Harbor,
cold-shouldered by the fleet master’s daughters,
an old lady blinded by steel.
CHETZEMOKA took burial
at sea while under tow—water to water.
Salt is merciless, we already knew,
but men are worse.
This beloved ferry VASHON
with the faithful hold
of her engine room
split open—
the lions of sunlight inside, loose and roaring.
Tom Snyder: Collected Poems 