WebPoems

Fringe follows the sails, improbably

Softening their edges, like broken bitmaps,

The light breeze moves their hulls

Away from shore, here, where the deep currents

Well up over their undersea cliffs, roiling

The surface slightly, and sucking

This trading ship into darker water.

Unzip along the dotted line,

Hold onto the checkerboard grill,

Peek out from the thatched cabin.

This digital ship is drawn,

One board at a time, as a shrine,

Bringing together outbuilding and hall,

Making a single structure,

Light, without much ballast, floating

For our study. No one's working the lines,

Or catching fish--even the wind

Isn't tipping them over. No force

Except his own imagining, rebuilding

These two ships, holding them steady,

Like a fleck on the wall ahead of

Meditating monks. No more tsunamis,

Beach fires, or pirates--the yantra

For Hokusai is a calm sea, as the horizon

Curves, elevating these two wonders

Of technology, austere, without ornament,

As they slowly follow their village fleet south

Toward the largest sail, that blip, Mount Fuji.