Captain of the Hobnobbin Ferry

We have been in a golden age of science. That is everywhere evident: in our transportation systems for example. We can actually fly even if by principles of physics not obviously birdlike. Also, we have ample supplies of foodstuffs, even if not distributed equitably around the globe, and many fewer of us may be farmers than are workers in Giant Eagles.

We have greater health security and life expectancy in the modern medicines of advantaged societies, though it is easy to see how much more there is to know, and reduce to therapy. For now, it is drug for this, and drug for that. And yes our English language literature and ways of communicating it reflect our scientific knowledge, even in the opposite sense suggested by the literary category of Science Fiction. Do you mark that Mr. H.G. Wells?

No American generation has ever known better, at least in terms of what money can buy. Is the peak at hand in our country, or yet to come? Is belief in fantasy on the rise, science be damned? Fantasy, maybe even not on the rise, but risen from the dark abyss and shadows to which it was previously relegated? Who knows. More importantly, do we as a people care enough, busy as we are with noses in those modern devices created by science?

One risks credibility when making predictions, when twists and turns may yet surprise. But our Anonymous Poet has given the matter some thought. As always, he is driven to reflect in his own medium, poetry. And this is what he has written about the moment, about any moment:

<indent><indent>He is Captain Sir of the Hobnobbin Ferry,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Plying upon the waves of a sea of corn;</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Never never has he even seen the other,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>'Cause that was not where he was born.</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>All who see smile with him; they too</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Smell salt in the air of the sea breeze,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>And the captain plows on, "..blue horizon,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Due north of town, off the Illinois keys."</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>The route goes on forever, all in a day,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>Weighing anchor at unnamed prairie towns,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>The cargo the joy of a zany dream, except</indent></indent> <indent><indent>For his loving wife; she alone frowns.</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>For her, back porch is the one real deck,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>The stack's his pipe, and the gull unheard</indent></indent> <indent><indent>In the whistling wings of a mourning dove;</indent></indent> <indent><indent>She sees red epaulets on mostly black bird.</indent></indent>

<indent><indent>But she knows not all of him to tell;</indent></indent> <indent><indent>It's about what he does between the runs,</indent></indent> <indent><indent>That he casts a line with live sea bait</indent></indent> <indent><indent>And catches Boston bluefish by the tons.</indent></indent>

By The Anonymous Poet