January is like navigating

ice floes – then eventually heading east

for aromatic landfalls, or west

following the setting sun, or south

for the long haul like some latter day Cook,

journeying without guides into foreign parts.

The first port of call is in February.

Love fills the sails, the swell lifts the bow.

We met one July, married one August.

In May our daughter will be fifty one.

The bow lifts in the swell, the canvas fills with love.

Fearing the doldrums, I write each poem

as if it were to be the last – whistling up

favourable words speaking of love,

voyaging without charts.