The Journey
Moonlight, 1887, a painting by Albert Pinkham Ryder, U.S.
I walk the New York docks in dead of night,
past street lamps shifting shadows out of light.
Brine and tar and rot scent the breeze.
I roam with good and ghastly memories
of my New Bedford childhood, where waves
would shush, or swallow whalers to their graves.
The force behind it all, Divinity,
torments and blesses me with mystery.
I paint a boat adrift, with one hunched man
aboard his simple craft. His cold, wet hand
holds fast to the mast with a ravaged sail
that fails in the force of the rising gale.
Two black clouds are keeping watchful eyes
around the moon until the sun will rise.
Exquisite terror fills this man alone,
drifting onward to a shore unknown.
Barbara Lydecker Crane has won the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Crown Contest, the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest, and has twice been a Finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize. Her five published collections include You Will Remember Me (2023, Word Galaxy Press, an imprint of Able Muse Press) and Art & Soul (2025, Kelsay Books). She lives with her husband near Boston.
