Paper Ship Builders

Journeys are conceived
Plans made
Maps drawn
Provender procured
Crews pressed

Combinations of sound
Hastily hammered together in urgent necessity
Amid the cacophony, or
Constructed rib by rib
With circumspect, deliberate
Painstaking self-remonstrance
Taken to micro-fractals
Of choices
Designed all
To accomplish one task
To carry one burden
To deliver whole and intact

So we set our paper ships to sail
On stormy seas and we are
Surprised when they do not arrive,
Make it only part way
Or deliver the unintended

We can blame ourselves
We can blame others, or
The sea, or  
Wallow in the wreck
Of sunken expectation

Or we can take new paper and pen
And begin again

-- Tom Rubenoff