Flotsam Wisdom on the Bay
Number 1: The Corrective Set-back
(or “How to profit from Titanic’s Legendary Loss”)
“Full-steam ahead is certainly exhilarating, but the consequences of collision at high speed are exponentially increased.”
Coroner
For having piloted a craft or two
at irresponsible, fool-rapid rates,
at times in “races” in the company of other Boats and Skiffs,
I’ve seen spectacular disintegrations on the Seas.I’d say that they were all preventable, unnecessary, in the extreme…
but for the one disconsolate, unsung necessity
served so well by death and tragedy:
Preserving life and limb for those who see.
Alas, experience inflates itself and arrogance sets in, there too. It is the feeling of invulnerability that whispers doom, and makes the “tactile” driver toe his brakes and squint his eyes for signs of Solid Things in Fog, ahead.
I tried to help a friend tonight, a Captain in his own right, to appreciate the satisfaction of a caution well-applied. But, slowing down is really not his trip. I fear frustration, and a sense of losing time, have taken root. And pressure on the throttle is a drug.
I hate to preach. But logic, on the other hand,
is inescapable and always there.
One may call upon it, to support
an argument, when rationality has fled.
Is that betrayal? Take heed.
Contrariance, especially the sort that builds to rage,
is a message, well received.
poetry | caution | nautical | 2houseplague | mardack