(poem, 1944)

Ask me who made the world.
Ask me who made the world,
I will evert my eyes and laugh,
I will clasp seven fingers to my lips and turn to someone else
While you lean forward
Trying to understand the muffled shouting of my mind.
Notes from a drowned and living trumpet

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When my man goes to sea,
He steps so high and free.
I think I know as I watch him go
That he has no need for me, for me.

And when my man comes home
And waits a while to roam,
I think I see when he smiles at me
That he's dreaming of the foam, the foam.

I'm not a pious Christian
I do not go to mass,
But I pray to Father Neptune
To let him safely pass.

I sing to the god
With the three-pronged rod
And the whiskers wild and free
That I've got a man
With a beard and a tan
And a passion for the sea.

He rides through the storm
And the cold and the warm
And he loves to risk his neck,
And I like to know
When he goes below
That it's just below the deck.

Oh, Neptune, Father Neptune
I tell you fair and true:
That if you should lose my sailor
I'll sing no more to you.

When he's home from sea
He’s half with me and he's
Gone when I close the door.
And it's still his creed
That he has no need
Of a wife except on shore.

I know it's the boat that keeps him afloat - -
But I like to think it's me…
And if it were not for this
I would sink to the depths
Of the sea

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