He went away on a ship a long time ago,
Slipping away quietly out of the noisy harbor,
Sailing with regrets-to-come and no-fanfare
Out of the inland port.
The city behind him disappeared in haze
As the ship moved slowly through the channel to the sea,
And the last things that he saw, perhaps were the tall black
Towers and the storage tanks choked with Texas crude.
We said goodbye,
We said farewell,
And being young we could not know
The changeful nature of all we felt and said.
He sailed back home to Germany
And for a while we wrote, exchanging views
Of Zappa, Beatles, books, and style.
But soon we ceased; we were young, and cold, and true,
And never knew the changeful nature of such views.
"Well, damn him," I thought,
"If he can't write back!"
And at the other end?
Who knows,
Perhaps he thought the same?
He went away on a ship,
Sailing home to a life of his own,
And nature took her own course
And kept us well apart.
I left home shortly after,
In search of a life of my own;
Ten years' time took me everywhere
That I could think to go,
Then brought me here—back home again—
Where, like some better poet said, I finally had to go.
So here I am in port again near the channel to the sea,
And I sometimes see a ship sail past the towers
And the tanks, and I wonder what it's like to see
The last, the very last, of all this Texas crude.
Slipping away quietly out of the noisy harbor,
Sailing with regrets-to-come and no-fanfare
Out of the inland port.
The city behind him disappeared in haze
As the ship moved slowly through the channel to the sea,
And the last things that he saw, perhaps were the tall black
Towers and the storage tanks choked with Texas crude.
We said goodbye,
We said farewell,
And being young we could not know
The changeful nature of all we felt and said.
He sailed back home to Germany
And for a while we wrote, exchanging views
Of Zappa, Beatles, books, and style.
But soon we ceased; we were young, and cold, and true,
And never knew the changeful nature of such views.
"Well, damn him," I thought,
"If he can't write back!"
And at the other end?
Who knows,
Perhaps he thought the same?
He went away on a ship,
Sailing home to a life of his own,
And nature took her own course
And kept us well apart.
I left home shortly after,
In search of a life of my own;
Ten years' time took me everywhere
That I could think to go,
Then brought me here—back home again—
Where, like some better poet said, I finally had to go.
So here I am in port again near the channel to the sea,
And I sometimes see a ship sail past the towers
And the tanks, and I wonder what it's like to see
The last, the very last, of all this Texas crude.
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