Nautical Artists and Poets

We told you y'all were talented!

Just as we expected, lots of talented folks on our small-boat community. Some art and poetry has washed in over the transom. Take a look and enjoy! —Eds

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Some watercolors and a song lyric from Stacy Smith.

Song, Untitled (for my parents):

Wide are the waters before us
Deep is the sea below
Wild are the waves that will toss us
Strong are the winds that blow

Bright are the stars that will guide us
Strong is our hull in its strain
Straight is our keel on its courses
Full is our sail on the main

Harbor to harbor we wander
The winds and the currents we chase
We borrow them by God’s great mercy
And at anchor we rest in His grace

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“This is a woodcut I made for attendees of a messabout we hosted in 2005. It’s my small skiff sailing on Lake Dardanelle, Arkansas.” Phillip Lea

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“Built for our 50th Anniversary. Just one of the fleet—the rest float. Keep up the good work.” Roger Read.

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Mike Smith writes:  This one may be only periphery to salt water, but here you are:

How to boil water: a newly revised and up-to-date recipe.

First, you must buy a home in the country. Preferably one with a trout stream running nearby. Look up and watch the clouds twist, flow and transmogrify twixt evil monsters, and angelic cows. Smell the wild lilac and watch the bee traffic to see from whence it emanates. Listen for the slightest buzz of the country folk who feed off the flowers. By the way, there are two ways to open those paper packets of sugar: tear off the top, or tear them in two and spill from both sides. You needn’t listen to pontification on which is better. You get to choose, and the other way be damned.

Speaking of dreams, how are they different from magic, or the imagination? Which is real? That is a conundrum that has no pleasant answer. But if you just float in the aviary of your ideals the right answer always comes and is perfectly reliable.

So, you see? Trusting your instinct is better than years of conformative schooling [which only tries to drum it out of you] and with the basic tools of life before you, you find the instructions pre-wired to your fingertips. Your only enemy is self-doubt – certainly not the enemies that others try to foist upon you.

It’s funny how boiling water sounds like rain hitting the roof of your first car as you sit mesmerized that you own a car – in the rain – hoping for a date. And as you come out of the daze of the rhythm, you realize; water WANTS to boil, and all you have to do is listen.

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More coming soon! —Eds