Long distance cruising on Tapini
by Mercedes Webb-Pullman
We ran the yacht’s diesel for an hour
morning and evening.
Everything on the water was important.
But we moved
to our own private Montana,
high on a mountain river near
drought-stricken Numeralla.
Lynchy on his crazy mare
popped up above high tussock.
she’s bucking and kicking but he’s still on
you called as they vanished again
then you were gone too.
I dreamed about Tapini last night,
when we bought her and learned to sail.
I dreamed we cruised to Lizard Island
as we’d always planned, and loved it
and we were still there.
PHOTO: Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef (Queensland, Australia).
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My husband and I bought a yacht, a 40’ steel hull multi-chined cutter rigged bilge keeler, built specifically for cruising the Whitsunday Passage. We learned to sail, and planned our perfect holiday, cruising the Australian Great Barrier Reef. But things happened, we moved inland and sold the yacht. Then our marriage fell apart. That was 30 years ago. Last week I dreamed of him, and the yacht, and how happy we were, once. It was awful to wake up, and not be there on Lizard Island with him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mercedes Webb-Pullman graduated from IIML Victoria University Wellington with MA in Creative Writing in 2011. Her poems and the odd short story have appeared online and in print, in Turbine, 4th Floor, Swamp, Reconfigurations, The Electronic Bridge, poetryrepairs, Connotations, The Red Room, Silver Birch Press, Otoliths, among others, and in her books. She lives on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand.
PHOTO: The author on vacation in New Orleans in 2011, about to drink her first Hurricane at Pat O’Briens. Cheers!
Silver Birch Press 