August 07 2007

Text By Greg Fallis

My dreams are filled with boats and the shapes of boats. I close my eyes and see the angelic sweep of lateen sails displayed by dhows off the coast of Dar es Salaam. I hear the soft chuckling of water passing beneath the keel of a gaff-rigged schooner sailing out of Gloucester harbor. I feel the deck shift underfoot as the felucca tacks on the River Nile. I can smell and taste the saltwater as I stand in the wineglass stern of a Norfolk wherry passing through the Broads as the tide glides in.

Even in my waking life I am haunted by boats and the shapes of boats. The wind rattles the lanyard of a flagpole...and I hear the clatter and clank of masts bobbing at anchor. The waiter seats me at my table...and the fine linen napkin unfolded on my lap calls to mind the square-rigged sails of an old English frigate.

Boats and the shapes of boats echo faintly through my life, a sound as rhythmic as a distant marker buoy, as forlorn as the cry of a gull. Boats, always boats, boats and the shapes of boats.