Lyrics

The Candace

“The bones of an old ship found by workers digging the foundations for a San Francisco high-rise last fall have been identified as the remains of a 188 year-old whaling ship out of the era made famous by Herman Melville’s classic novel ‘Moby Dick’.”
San Francisco Chronicle 1-26-06


A three-masted bark built in Boston,
you hunted sperm whales in the south Atlantic, the Pacific
and the Indian Oceans. Damaged in the Artic,
you made the Golden Gate and never sailed again.

Of all the ships abandoned under the streets of San Francisco
after the Gold Rush
you are the only one found intact.

I looked at the picture of you aground in the hole they were digging
looking like a whale yourself, ribs of your bow exposed
decks now deteriorated
timbers propping you up
and I stopped to read your story.

Each whaling voyage took two years, two years!

What was life like on your little wooden island adrift in the sea?

And why did you take so long to reveal yourself,
to stop the usual flow
of pomp and circumstance on Folsom Street?

The secretaries carrying cups of coffee to waiting, angry bosses.
The teenagers gathered on corners watching the girls,
absently fingering their chains.
The workers eyeing your unearthed carcass and wondering
how to extract you whole from your resting place.

Of course you know that, bursting on us like this,
you’ve made us realize that we’re not the beginning and the end;

Apparently others have lived long years
lost at sea and, like us,
have learned about losses.