The Wild Ride

..take a trip and never leave the farm...

Come, and sit ye by my side
And I’ll relate to thee a tale
So tall, so true, so mystifying
That you will doubt your ears and say
“Impossible!” Yet proof exists
The lands I travelled and the seas betwixt
Still woo, still beckon, still beguile
The curious and bold from tropic climes
To arctic cold to taste uncertain times.

Magellan scoured the world and lost
His life to Lapu-Lapu on Mactan.
In 1521, he sailed the vast Pacific cross
To blaze a spice route for the Spanish king.
The chief, and minions loyal to his name,
Hurled stones and arrows, as their village flamed,
And dashed the infidels upon the rocks.
Magellan’s head, adorning Lapus’s spear,
Inspired the sailor’s souls with primal fear.

Clark and Lewis, with a chosen few,
Matched ‘Old Muddy’s’ fury with their own.
Hardship, deprivation, and pain they knew.
Pirogues and keelboat pierced the wild unknown--
Sturdy built and stuffed with wares and corps,
Advanced defiantly past savage shores,
Until Sacagawea, but ten and two
When stole by fierce Hidatsa while alone,
Did guide them safe to her Shoshone home.

Sir Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’ heaved and quaked
As untimely ice floes merged and burst like glass.
The foundering Barquentine resolved to break
A lead before the edgeless frozen mass.
Instead, held fast within the icy sheets.
Consumed, at will, by the Polar Beast beneath,
She splintered like the brittle bones of age.
Resigning crew and captain to the whim
Of a cruel, infernal giant, stark and grim.

Yet, ne’er will Human destiny be quelled.
Apollo 13 would not spell the last.
Launched toward a foreign Lunar hell,
To watch the sullen orb glide glibly past.
As Lovell, Haise, and Swigert tensely waited,
NASA scrambled, improvising greatly
To service water, heat, and O2 levels.
Jury-rigging CO2 removal
To meet the world’s and astronauts’ approval.

Yes, tales of terrifying trials are many.
Yet, those who know its bitter taste are rare.
Look around, you won’t discover any.
That’s not to say the heroes are not there.
They live and breathe within the World of Words,
As real as blood flow and as keen as swords.
Armchair adventurers, today, are plenty.
Weighed down by Life’s complexity and need.
The Wild Ride can be ours, if we but read.