DRIFTING...

Adrift alone on the wide, wide sea...
No power of emotion bothering me.
The sea is deep...
The current is strong
not an island for thousands of miles
to stop the aimless drifting
far, far from shore...

I'll fight the waves no more
the strong current is my brother
taking me away from this malady
that's loose in my mind...

Who cares that one is adrift
in an ocean so wide...
drifting, drifting
and no place to hide?

Call me back if you will
or leave me alone to float
alone with the seaweed
in weary lassitude - so tired.

What is the price of a youth
so far from home...
when so many have floated away
with no life in their bones...
drifting, drifting no compass to guide
on an ocean of pain so deep and so wide.

Who will miss us when muster is called...
just old veterans drifting away from
yesterday, tomorrow and today?
No use to fight any more...
drifting, drifting away from the shore.

Once we were young and strong...
fighting for right,
resisting the wrong.
But now we're drifting along
awash on the ocean of time...
drifting forever with
neither reason nor rhyme...
who will shed a tear
when old veterans are gone?

Better just to keep drifting
alone in the dark;
marking time with the waves
and watching the stars.
There must be a haven somewhere
where old veterans need drift no more...
a wondrous place
with beautiful shore...

©Copyright January 28, 2004 by C. Douglas Caffey

On February 14, 2004, this poem appeared on page B2 of the
Mississippi Sun Herald
(the newspaper with the largest circulation on the Mississippi coast)