Echo.

Across a span of centuries it fling; a pagan call,
And beats into your heart, Sea Child, with every seagull's cry.
It mingles with the same torn wind that filled the high grey sails
Flecking the years now swept aside by Time's eternal flails.
And it breathes again, as life re-born, beneath the dead years’ pall
In each whispered murmur dropping from the greyness of a gaunt, grim sky.
It hints of primal freedom shrouded in the carven bows
Crested with tall stern figureheads that rifted the unknown seas.
And it muffles the stir of the iron boats threshing the chartered waves,
And blurrs the routes travel-defined, that a new day's knowledge paves.
In its voice is the wild uncertainty that clung to the slender prows,
And the magic of conquered winds and seas, and exultant discoveries.
And so, in the depth of your soul that stirs as the vast sea dips
Is an aching throb—the ancient call—echo of wooden ships.

Robin Lincoln.