The Old Sailors

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On the green riverbank
		age late fifties
I am beginning
		to remind myself
Of my great uncle Desir
		in the Virgin Islands
On a Saint Thomas back beach
he lived when I last saw him
in a small shack
		under the palms
Eighty years old
		straight as a Viking
	(where the Danes once landed)
he stood looking out
		over the flat sea
blue eyes or grey
salt upon his lashes
	We
were always sea wanderers
No salt here now
		by the great river
	in the high desert range
Old sailors stranded
the steelhead
they too lost without it
			leap up and die

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