ships at sea

as a boy in
barcelona my
brother and i
would wander
down to where
the warm streams
pooled into
low clean swamps
of brush, the
clear water
holding clouds
and sun in
slow soft ripples,
and we
would take
paper and corks
and toothpicks
and set sail
our fleet of ships
onto the great
seas before us,
blowing them
off to where
they couldn't
be reached, where
the winds would
take them. and
in some ways, i
feel that i am
still at sea, like
those corks on
foreign shores,
with their paper
sails, not yet
in the port i
desire to be, but
very close.