Can that ache be filled with temporary solutions?

What happens when the singing brook slows to an alto winter,

When fall dips into the frozen places?

How do I fill the space between those temporary satisfactions,

Those amorous sauces, dripping from fragrant cedars,

How do I keep old reeking thoughts from sneaking into the intervals?

Do not think back to the bygone days of ho ho ho’s and turkey!

Do not go charging in between the status and the quid pro quos,

Do not be trapped in that gnarled internal landscape,

Bitten away from the valves of life, 

Take care!

When life is sailing along in the straits,

When the winds sing out through the rigging,

When honey flows in the pantry loaves,

When today’s new ghosts haunt up the holds,  

When the day is alive for the living,

Abandon the helm and the charts and debates,
Cast your bow to the wind and the fates,
Take care!

William Glackens, American, 1870-1938, wash and graphite on paper
Fleet of Transports just before the start, Tampa Bay, June 13 1898
Prints and Photographs Division; LIbrary of Congress, Washington, D.C.